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“Yes, and as a result, you have enjoyed several hours of uninterrupted sleep in a reasonably sheltered barn. I consider the arrangement rather successful.”

“Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it,” I mutter, lowering my hands. “Though I should think there are easier ways of obtaining a blanket than threatening to murder somebody with their own fruit.”

Iscairn inclines his beak, apparently quite satisfied with himself, but my eyes linger on the scorched fabric of his cloak. There's a tear near his shoulder where the flames caught him, and the sight of it brings back the crypt, the smoke rising from his bare skin as he struggled to keep hold of me.

He'd been burning alive in that church, and he'd stayed anyway.

He didn’t have to save me, but he did that too.

I tug awkwardly at the hem of my shift, trying to straighten the filthy linen over my belly.

“Is something troubling you?” he asks.

“No. Well, yes, but not in the way you might think.” I glance at him again, then busy myself picking a bit of straw from my chest.

“Such as what?”

I open my mouth, but the blackened tips of my fingers catch my attention. The skin is still shrivelled around my nails, just as it was in the crypt, though when I rub my thumb across one, I can feel every little crack. I curl my fingers into my palm, watching them bend without any difficulty.

“Ophelia?”

“Hmm?” I look up. “Oh, yes. What I meant to ask was whether I owe you something now. For what you've done, I mean. I know you said you could save me, but I don't recall us discussing what you might expect in return.”

“Your company henceforth,” Iscairn says smoothly, picking up the bread. “That is what I expect.”

I blink at him, my blackened fingers freezing where they rest against my shift. “My company?”

“Your company.” He shakes the loose chaff from the linen cloth and holds the bread towards me. “I find that I enjoy it immensely, Ophelia Harrow. And having gone to considerable trouble to pry you from the church, I intend to keep it for quite some time.”

I take the bread from his bare fingers and lower myself onto the straw, tucking my shift beneath my thighs before tearing off a piece. It's rye, with a little caraway baked into the crust, and the first mouthful tastes so much stronger than I remember that I pause halfway through chewing. Even the salt lingers on my tongue.

I look at him for a moment, unsure what to say. I'd been expecting some dreadful obligation, perhaps a lifetime of servitude, and instead he's asking me to spend more time with him.

“Well, I should hope so,” I say. “You've hardly gone to all that trouble just to be rid of me.”

“I certainly have not,” he says as he crouches beside me and gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb lingering against my temple. “But you do not seem overly concerned by the source of your resurrection.”

I lower the bread to my lap. He's right, of course. I've spent my whole life trying to keep people alive, tending to their wounds and sitting beside them when there was nothing more I could do, and now here I am, breathing because a man was burned up to do it.

I rub my thumb over the blackened tip of my forefinger, searching for some trace of the horror I ought to feel, but there's nothing resembling regret. If anything, I'm rather pleased that Billy Mercer has finally managed to do something worthwhile with his miserable existence.

“Why should I be?” I ask, my voice perfectly steady. “I'm alive, aren't I?”

“You are,” he agrees. “And I confess I had been concerned that you might come to resent me for the manner in which I ensured it.”

“Well, I don't.” I reach across the straw to take his hand. His fingers close around mine, wonderfully warm despite everything he'd suffered in the church, and I give them a gentle squeeze. “You saved my life, Iscairn. I know what it cost you, and I haven't forgotten what you went through to do it. Thank you.”

He lowers his head towards our joined hands, his thumb passing slowly over my blackened knuckles. “You need not thank me. I could hardly have done otherwise.”

“Perhaps not, but I'd like to all the same.”

He holds my hand a little longer before reaching into his satchel for a small flask of water and a clean square of linen, which he dampens and lifts towards me. I give him a nod, and he begins wiping away the dried blood around my mouth while I carry on eating, occasionally turning my cheek to let him reach the filth caught along my jaw. The water is pleasantly cool against my skin, and he works his way up towards my temple, brushing my hair aside before making a faint noise of disapproval at whatever stubborn mess he finds there.

“Hold still,” he murmurs, dabbing firmly at the crusted grime along my hairline. “You have enough churchyard soot ground into your scalp to plant leeks.”

“I am,” I grumble around a mouthful of rye.

The linen comes away grey and smeared with old blood, and as he folds it to find a clean edge, I look down at the state of my shift. It's stiff with soot and the rancid yellow filth that poured from my groin yesterday, reeking like a plague pit where the damp fabric clings to my thighs.