She woke in the second chair with a coat over her shoulders that was not hers. It was heavy and warm and smelled of soil and snow and something else she had no word for yet, something that was only him, and she lay very still under it for a while with her eyes half open, watching the soft blue glow of the little fire of Dreams burning on the floor.
It had sunk down low. A cold cup of tea sat on the floor beside it, with pale petals curled at the bottom.
Through the curved shell of the wall, she could hear voices on the porch. One of them she knew better than she knew her own new hands. The other she did not know at all. It was a woman's voice, young and old at once, careful and quiet and very sad, and the mighty Hoe lay under the coat and listened, because the voices were about her.
She did not catch all of it.
She caught pieces. "It belongs to my father." "His power, waking up in the wrong place." "I have come to bring it home to him."
