Chapter 40: The Next Pup

A year later, the Hospice lodge was never quiet before noon.

The three pups were crawling now, in three directions at once.

The Tyros pup went for the hearth, the Rydes pup went for the bookshelves, and the Helix pup went for whatever was most expensive.

"He's got the inkwell," Joel said, from the breakfast table.

"I see it," said James, not moving. "It's a very good inkwell. He has taste."

"James."

"It's a joke, I'm getting it."

He got up, scooped his son off the carpet by one boot, and tucked him under his arm like a loaf of bread.

The pup chewed his own fist and looked pleased.

Max laughed over his tea.

He was at the head of the long table with the spring sun on his hands, and for the first time in his life he had nothing to hide in either palm.

The old scars lay pale and open on the cloth.

Nobody looked at them anymore, except to hold them.

"Eat," said Raven, putting a plate in front of him. "You're thin."

"I'm not thin."

"You are thinner than you were."

"Am I being weighed?"

"I keep records," Raven said, with great calm, and sat.

Joel stood up halfway out of his chair.

"I'm," he said. "Hm."

His face had gone grey.

"Joel?" said Max.

Joel put one hand on the table, and the next moment he was on the floor.

James said a word that made the Rydes pup look up.

He dropped the inkwell and the baby both, caught one, and heard a second crash behind him.

Raven had gone over backward in his chair.

He lay on the boards with his long legs tangled in the rungs and his black book across his chest, perfectly unconscious.

"Oh, no," James said. "Oh, no, you're not. Not again. Not all of us."

Then the floor came up under him too.

Max sat at the head of the table with a teacup in each hand and three men flat on the boards around him.

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