Cadan sat up. “There’s a place closer where we can dry off and rest.”

Eleanor looked around, at the dense cover of trees and thick undergrowth. “Someone lives near here?”

As they began picking their way through the undergrowth, Cadan said. “Not exactly. Lily Smith’s father liked building things, tinkering about, experimenting. Sometimes the results were loud and messy, so he built a workshop in a place he wouldn’t disturb anyone but the squirrels.”

Eleanor clambered over a log. “How long has it been abandoned?”

“The Old Master’s been gone a couple of years now, but Lily and Evan Smith make sure the place is looked after. It’s stocked for emergencies.”

Cadan had lost his satchel during their adventures, Eleanor wondered if emergency stocks included food of some sort. They stumbled onward, Cadan leading. How he knew which way to go was a mystery, the sun was hidden, and every tree looked the same.

On that thought, they pushed their way between a couple of bad-tempered holly bushes and into a clearing. There was a stream crossing the far side of it that Eleanor eyed suspiciously. “Is that going to do anything?”

Cadan shook his head. “It’s from a spring barely two horse lengths inside the trees, it’s running a little fuller than usual but won’t throw any trees or rocks at us.”

He tucked her under his arm and urged her towards a simple wooden hut, a stone’s throw from the stream.

He fumbled with the latch, swore, and looked around. “Locked, and I don’t know where they hide the key.”

Eleanor nudged a loose stone in the step leading to the door with her foot. It fell, revealing a small hollow with a sturdy iron key resting in it.

That earned her another fast kiss before Cadan picked up the key and wrestled the lock open.

They all but fell over the threshold, Cadan heading for, and lighting a lamp in the cold, dim light from the windows. Setting it on a table near the fireplace in the back wall, he turned his attention to getting a fire going. He said over his shoulder. “There should be towels on the shelf by the pump.”

There was an indoor pump? Eleanor turned in place, spotted something that looked like it might be capable of pumping water, and found the towels as promised. She brought one to Cadan and wrapped another around her shoulders as she looked around the room, now brightened by the flames in the deep, stone hearth.

The hut might have been simple, but its contents looked like the wrong end of a fight between a clockmaker, a carpenter and a deranged metalsmith. “What are these things?”

Cadan was pulling off his boots and gestured for her to do the same. “Your feet will warm faster out of them. We’ve no idea what most of the gadgets are, or do, and none in the village can read the Old Master’s notebooks.”

Eleanor asked. “Can Lily Smith read them?”

Cadan replied. “No. She says the script is Sundarian but he’s applied some sort of code to it.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Oh.”

But she was good at puzzles, maybe she could figure it out. She began searching the shelves. “Where are they? I’d like to see if I can do something.”

“They’re at the Castle. The Smiths decided they were safer there, and more likely to be read by some scholar who could decipher them.”

Eleanor glared at Cadan. It wasn’t his fault but that was just stupid. “How will they decipher the notes if they’re not with the devices the notes are about?”

“I hadn’t thought about that. Would it be hard?”

She fought an urge to stamp, she wasn’t wearing shoes, it would hurt. “Yes. Very. They should bring them back here and see if we can figure them out.”

Cadan chuckled. “We? Or you?”

Eleanor pretended not to hear him as she tucked the towel more tightly around her and frowned at a large wooden structure that looked like she should recognise it, or a version of it. Cadan went past her, carrying a pot to the pump, filling it, and returning to the fire. The back of his tunic was torn.

She gasped, the watery explosion, he’d been protecting her and she’d grumbled about books instead of checking his injuries. Books… That thing was a printing press! She had to get hold of the notes.

She took several deep, steadying breaths. The device, if it was a press, and the notebooks, weren’t going anywhere, and Cadan needed her. She followed him to the fire and, as he straightened, pulled him around so she could see his back more clearly. That was definitely blood on the edge of topmost tear.

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