Cara woke the next morning, drenched in sweat and the miasma from some nightmare that ghosted away as she wrenched her eyes open. Her gasps filled the air with misty exhalations.

Trembling, she looked around the cave, willing her heartbeat to slow. A lump of grey blankets near the entrance must be Dayton. Since she could see no sign of the kaprid-beastling, she—it—must be curled up with its rescuer.

Or maybe it had finally run away in the night. That’d be nice.

The fire had burned itself to embers with a pot nestled in its heart, but she could see where Dayton had banked the coals to make this morning’s fire. Not that he really needed to, anyway, with that “trade secret” of his. Wonder how he lights a fire so fast...

Cara mentally shrugged and began to peel herself from the cocoon of blankets she’d wrapped herself in. He could make a fire, and that’s all that mattered. Gods knew she wasn’t as fast with an iron and flint as he seemed to be.

She checked on her shin as soon as she could find it beneath the covers. The bandages Dayton had wrapped around it seemed to be free of new blood, but that didn’t tell Cara much.

Carefully, she picked apart the knots with her fingernails and eased the fabric strips away from her skin.

Her shin was cleaner than the rest of her—he must’ve cleaned the area before wrapping it. The inside of the strips smelled sharply of some sort of liniment or balm; smudges of it were smeared around the edges of the slash.

Ragged stitches had kept the edges of the wound closed while it healed. Cara made a face at Dayton’s “sewing.”

The gash would certainly scar. But, as Cara peered at the wound, it wasn’t at all as bad as she had feared.

No streaks of blood poisoning spider-webbed away from the wound; the skin was cool to her gently probing fingertips; and no pus oozed from the stitches. It throbbed faintly, but nothing that she couldn’t handle.

She took a deep breath, held it, and crouched on both feet.

Her injured shin held her upright with only a whisper of protest.

Cara resisted the urge to punch her fist in the air—she’d only hit the cave’s shallow ceiling—and sidled along the rocky walls, headed toward the exit.

When she made it to the lump of blankets that held Dayton, she saw she’d been right: The whelpling had taken refuge in Dayton’s sleeping warmth. She could just see one taloned foot peeking out from the folds of fabric, before it drew back under cover.

The nights were too cold for it to survive without the shelter, Cara realized, and wondered what had happened to the rest of the kaprid’s nestmates. With any luck, at least a few had survived to keep its mother preoccupied and not looking for the pair of hapless wanderers who had blundered onto its tiny island.

Outside of the cave, Cara straightened and stretched, her breath a misty plume. The morning turned her nose red and her fingers chill, but there was no help for it. She was riper than a rotten plum and twice as fragrant. She needed a bath, and damn the cold.

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Luck was on her side, for once. She followed a former game trail that Dayton had worn wider over the past day’s walking. As she’d hoped, it led to a covered spring pool. No ice hung over its edges, which was a relief.

Cara quickly shucked her clothes and—before her mind could wake up enough to talk her out of it—jumped into the water.

Her breath whooshed out in a rush of bubbles and shock. The spring water came from the depths of the earth, which meant the world was built on a heart of ice as far as Cara was concerned.

She lifted her head into the open air, and suddenly the morning didn’t seem nearly so cold.

Cara had wanted to make her first bath in days an unhurried affair, but she didn’t want to turn her leg into an icicle after the fever had tried to incinerate it just two days before. She used the cleanest parts of her old shirt to dry herself before she dressed in the new clothes she’d brought with her to change into.

As Cara pounded the filthy edge of her trousers on the pool’s edge against a convenient boulder, soap suds in danger of soaking the rolled-up cuffs of her new shirt, she realized she wouldn’t have a “new” set of clothes to wear when (if) they made it to Cadens.

Maybe she should’ve let Dayton talk her into keeping more clothes, but she’d be damned if she told him that now.

By the time she made her way back to the cave, her damp hair newly braided and re-pinned into its usual crown, the sun had well and truly risen above the horizon, spearing through the nearly naked branches of the trees and pooling beneath fern fronds.

The subtle scent of wood smoke wound toward her, beckoning her back to her resting place.

The bath had done both her leg and her mood a world of good, Cara decided as she unhooked a damp shirt arm from yet another bramble branch. She turned the corner and saw Dayton fussing with the pot over the newly resurrected cooking fire.

He glanced up as he heard her approach. “Well, you’re looking chipper this morning.”

“I’m feeling better, yes,” she said, and crouched beside the fire. “Good enough to move on. What’s that?”

In answer, Dayton grabbed a handkerchief and lifted the pot’s lid. A puff of steam wafted up, and Cara sniffed appreciatively.

“Mm. Porridge!”

Dayton replaced the lid and eased the pot closer to the revitalized coals. “You must be feeling better. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone that excited about my cooking since… well, ever.”

“Hunger is the best spice.” She rummaged in the packs Dayton had pulled out from the pile for their cup-bowls and the spoons she’d been sure she’d kept packed.

“Where’s the beastling?” she asked while she worked. “Run away?”

“Don’t sound so hopeful. She’s right there.”

Cara looked up to see where Dayton was motioning, and found the infant kaprid dozing on a broad rock that formed the north wall of the makeshift fire pit. “She sleeps a lot.”

“When she’s not eating. She’s made her way through most of the bunyips. They were good for something, after all.”

“Good for several things, I’d say.” She handed Dayton his eating things. “The cave was cleared out of anything really nasty, considering the bunyip infestation. We haven’t had to deal with any sort of beasty, monster or mundane, because their territory’s been marked with the scent. It’s still there, even though we’re pretty much used to it by now.

“Minor miracle my leg didn’t rot right off with the leftover stink, though. What’d you put on it?”

Dayton ladled porridge into his bowl and hers. “The tea you drank already, from the monks. I mixed it into some honey I found in the emergency medicine kit. Helps keep infection away.”

“Useful sorts, those monks of yours.” Cara tried the porridge, and decided it tasted as good as it smelled. “They teach you to cook in the abbey, too?”

“In a way. I was never scolded for hanging about the kitchens if I made myself useful—and I’d get a bun without having to steal it.”

“Mm. Worth your time, I’d say. Thanks.”

Dayton coughed as porridge went down the wrong way. “Oh! Uh, you’re welcome. For what?”

“Breakfast.”

“Right. You’re welcome.”

“You said that already.”

“Shut up and eat, Cara.”

Cara shut up and ate.