“That’s a hell of a thing,” he managed.

“If you’d rather I didn’t—”

“Do I look stupid to you?” he demanded, eyes firing green under gold. “The world is what it damn well is. As it is, I’m a farmer who’s got a witch who can give the crops a boost. Have you got a problem with what you are?”

“No, but—”

“Why should I? The way I see it, the biggest problem we’ve had, right from the get, is people pointing fingers and worse at ones who aren’t just like them. We ought to try to do better this time around. It might be our last chance to get it right.”

He tapped another pot. “Do this one.”

She let it come, all joy now. Then stepped back from the tender sprout.

“I don’t know if it’s me or her or us. But I know she changed me. If I woke tomorrow, and all these months had been a dream, I’d still be changed. Oh!” Once again she laughed as she pressed a hand to the side of her belly.

Those kinds of moves and gestures made him twitchy. “You okay?”

“Yeah. She’s kicking.” Surprising them both, Lana took his hand, pressing it to her stomach.

He felt a jolt, one that went straight into him. Life kicking against his hands, and for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, into his heart.

Someone grew inside there, he thought. Someone innocent, helpless. Yet from the strength of the kick, fierce.

“She’s … got some sass.”

Now he stepped back as Lana’s face was nearly as luminous as it had been when she’d brought life out of the dirt. The look of her, bold and glowing, stirred something in him just as the child stirred in her.

He’d been careful, damn careful, to avoid that.

“I’ve got work I need to get to. Can you handle the rest of this?”

“Yes.”

When he left, she stood quietly with the scent of dirt and growing things.

* * *

Simon kept busy, and treated Lana like he’d have treated a sister if he’d had one. Twice in September groups passed by. She stayed in the house and out of sight, wary.

He gave them supplies, directed them to the settlement. Some would stay, others he knew would continue on. Searching for something else, something more. Just searching.

After he saw the second group off, Simon came into the kitchen to find her stirring stew on the stove with the shotgun propped beside her.

He moved it to the back door.

“Eight people. One of them had wings. I can’t get used to seeing that. They skirted around D.C. a few days ago.”

Since the table was set—she tended to fuss with that sort of thing—he washed up in the sink.

“They heard gunfire, saw smoke. One of them was getting the hell out when he hooked up with them. He said, word is— God, what’s her name?” He paused, rubbed his temple. “MacBride’s still alive, and what’s left of the government’s trying to hold the city. Every time they get communications up, somebody takes it out again.”

“It seems like another world. Like a story about another world.”

“Yeah, it does. But it isn’t. There are rumors about people in camps and labs.”

“Magickal people?”

“Yeah, but not just. The estimate is…” He’d considered saying nothing to her, had nearly convinced himself to take that tack.

But he couldn’t.

“I’m telling you because it’s not right you don’t know, but it’s not confirmed, okay?”

She turned to him. “Okay?”

“They’re saying the plague’s finished, run its course. That’s the good news. The bad is they’re estimating it took about eighty percent of the population. That’s world population. That’s more than five billion people. It could be more.

“I need a drink.”

He went to the pantry, got a bottle of whiskey, poured two fingers.

“I heard the same a few days ago.” He downed half the whiskey. “There’s a guy with a ham radio in the settlement, and he’s been able to reach a few others—even a couple in Europe, and it’s no better there. Adding the ones who offed themselves, the ones killed for the fucking hell of it, you can up the percentage. New York … Do you want to hear this?”

“Yes. But more, I need to hear it.”

“New York’s under the control of the Dark Uncannys. There’s talk of human sacrifice, of stake-burning people like you—who aren’t like them. The military’s holding some areas, especially west of the Mississippi, but from what I get, the chain of command’s pretty fractured. There are offshoots, and they’re posting bounties on all Uncannys: dark, light, doesn’t matter.”

“The Purity Warriors.”

“They’re leading the charge. Raiders are keeping mobile, doing hit-and-runs. And they’re bounty hunting.”

Calmly, she ladled stew into one of his mother’s fancy dishes—she did like to fuss. “So it’s bad for everyone, but for someone like me? We’re hunted by all sides. It’s hard to believe what you said the other day about getting it right this time could happen.”

She carried the bowl to the table.

“I have to believe it.”

Now she ladled stew from the dish to the bowls.

She sat, waited for him to join her.

“When I was in New Hope, I saw what people could and would do together. I saw how others tried to destroy that. You were a soldier.”

“Yeah.”

“So was Max, at the end. He made the choice to fight, to lead because it needed to be done. You did the same, killing to protect someone you barely knew. You gave the people who were here food you worked to grow, and that was a choice. The people who try to destroy won’t win because there will always be people like Max, like you, like the people I left behind who make the choice.”

She held a brighter view than he did at the moment. He didn’t mind the balance.

“I read one of his books. Not the one you have,” he said, when she stared at him. “One of the others. It was good. He was a good writer.”

“He was.” She smiled over the ache in her heart. “He was good.”

* * *

Habitually after a long day, after the evening meal and the evening chores, Simon worked in the barn. He usually wound down before bed in his mother’s library for an hour or two with a book.

He missed TV, and wasn’t shamed to admit it, but books made up for it. He missed beer, and had high hopes the group trying to put together a little brewery would succeed. He settled most nights for tea, and had—almost—acquired a taste for it.

That didn’t make up for the lack of beer.

The dogs generally settled down with him, making it a nice, easy way to end the day. He’d let them out for a last round before heading up.

The book took his mind off the work, the world, the woman sleeping upstairs. The work would always be there, he couldn’t do a damn thing about the world. And he limited his thoughts regarding Lana to a very narrow window.

The last few nights he studied. Books were good for that as much as entertainment.

He’d done plenty of scavenging in the months since his parents died. Running a farm the way things turned out was a different prospect than growing up on one the way things had been.

He’d added considerably to the library.

Books gave him instructions on beekeeping, on butchering—though he’d happily turned that task over to the settlement—on making butter, cheese, holistic medicines and treatments.

Cooking—before Lana had come along.

So he did what he thought of as his homework with a mixture of fascination and horror—laced with a good dose of dread.

When he heard her coming, it surprised him enough to have him slap the book shut and rise. She never stirred out of her room once she’d gone in, shut the door.

But she stepped in now, her hair tumbled over her shoulders, the big, baggy T-shirt flowing over Baby Mountain and barely reaching the middle of her thighs.

She had damn nice legs, he thought, then immediately shut that part of his brain down.

“Sorry. Couldn’t sleep.”