Across the pool, the sun was slipping away behind a stand of evergreens. I looked down at the gloves dripping gently in my lap, and as if on cue, my stomach growled. I would reach Lackmore the next day—around noon, if I calculated correctly—and I could buy a little food in the city. My gloves, however… I was a bard by training, and my goal was to join the city’s Bardic Guild. Impressing the Guild Masters on my guitar would be difficult with frozen hands.

I had made the right choice, but my empty stomach felt otherwise.

“You all right, miss?”

The voice startled me, and my glasses nearly slipped off my nose as I looked around hastily. “Yes! Fine, thank you. I just… almost lost my gloves.”

A black-bearded dwarf stood watching me with an expression that mingled concern and disapproval in a decidedly parental manner. A small pince-nez clung to his nose, which was red from the cold, and a threadbare wool hat sat askew on his bald head. His patched coat and trousers hardly looked any warmer.

“Seems you lost your food. Looked a proper fine loaf I saw sinking just now.”

I sighed. “I bought that back in Dellycross. I was saving it for tonight, with the last of my butter from home.”

“Last road meal, eh?” He ambled over and offered me a hand up. “A fine tradition. You’re a highland girl? First time to Lackmore?”

“Yes, and no,” I said, brushing snow from my shearling. Between my springy mass of blonde hair and my denim trousers, folk identify me in an instant. “Gally Chaparral. I’m a bard. I’ve been to Lackmore a number of times, but this time it’s permanent.” I stuck out my hand.

“Joining the Guild? Lords’ luck to you.” We shook, and his hand was surprisingly soft. “Borgun Inkblot, wandering scribe. Do more wandering than scribing, these days. Heard the north needs writers, so it’s Dellycross for me and the family.” He clapped me on the arm. “Well, come along, then. The husband should have stew on by now.”

I considered his thin, patchy clothing and shook my head. “You’re very kind, but no. I was—” I combed my thoughts for an appropriate fiction. “I’m hoping to reach Lackmore tonight, in fact. It’s only a few miles, and I’ll have a hot meal and a bed when I arrive.”

“Went splashing after your bread and butter for a little snack? Tosh.” He shook his head. “Come now, we’re not so broke we can’t afford to share.”

But a few minutes later, when Borgun and I stepped into the clearing where his family sat around a campfire, I decided they were more impoverished than he had let on.

His husband was a rangy, gray-haired elf who stirred a small copper stewpot with one arm and cuddled a girl of about seven with the other. Both wore clothes as meager as Borgun’s, and the boy who sat poking at the fire with a stick was dressed no better. I looked from brother to sister and back again—they looked the same age, with remarkably similar features.

“Found this one fishing in the Dwarrowpool,” said Borgun with a gesture at me. “She’s not got a thing to eat, poor miss.”

The elf looked up with a smile warming his features. “You mean fishing the Aelfentarn? Hello, my darling. I’m Waits-by-the-Stew.”

Borgun rolled his eyes. “He’s Tells-Bad-Jokes.”

“His name is Reads-by-Starlight!” the twins shouted together. They had clearly been through this before.

“And these are Jewel and Quill,” said Reads-By-Starlight, “though don’t ask me which is which.”

“I’m Jewel,” said the boy with the stick.

“No,” said the girl, muffled by her father’s arm. “I get to be Jewel today. Papa said. You were Jewel yesterday.”

“Why does no one ever want to be Quill?” asked Borgun with a sigh. “Well, here’s my friend Gally, and she’s a highland bard. You two quit bickering, maybe she’ll give you a song before bed.”

The twins fell instantly silent.

“I can do better than that,” I said, thinking I ought to earn my stew like a proper bard. “How about a song before supper?”

“Oh, please?” said Quill—if that was the boy’s name—peering up at Borgun.

He glanced at his husband. “Star?”

“The stew needs a few more minutes, love. We could use some music.”

I was still holding my guitar case, so I set it down by the fire and opened it. The girl raised her head from her father’s embrace and stared at it, firelight dancing in her eyes.

“Is that a highland lute?” she asked softly.

“I’m impressed.” I smiled. “We usually call it a guitar, but that’s exactly right. I’m going to let it sit here and warm up a little before I tune it. The wood and wire don’t like the cold very much.”

And neither do I, I thought, laying out my gloves at the base of the campfire. They were still damp, but the heat would swiftly take care of that—and with luck, do the same for the chill stiffening my fingers.

But between the need to keep the stew heating and the dwindling firewood supply, the fire didn’t shed as much warmth as I hoped. No wonder Jewel was in her father’s arms, and Borgun and Quill kept edging closer, too. I laid a hand on the body of my guitar and found it almost as cold as the night around us.

“I’m sorry, Jewel,” I told the girl.

“I’m Jewel,” the boy said without much gusto.

“I don’t think I can play my guitar tonight. It’s simply too cold out. I can still sing, if that’s all right with you.”

Nestled in Starlight’s arms, she nodded.

“This is a song we sing in the highlands,” I said, “on the longest, darkest night of the year, when everything’s buried in snow and summer feels far distant.”

Gazing into the waning flames, I sang:

The sun’s a faintly burning ember

Spring’s a phantom misremembered

And the darkness of December

Takes my breath away

Holding on’s a hard endeavor

Seasons pass and pass, however

Nothing lasts that lasts forever

Winter cannot stay

“Lovely,” Reads-by-Starlight said at length.

“Lovely,” echoed Jewel.

“I’m cold,” said Quill.