The dinner of bread and peas porridge contained no lizard parts, at least as far as Rob could detect, and he gladly accepted a second helping.

The mood felt tense at first; everyone knew that Maggie and Rob were expecting a baby, but nobody would talk about it, and it wasn’t until Maggie’s mother learned that Rob had hired Hans into his medical practice that things got rolling.

Maggie’s mother thoroughly disapproved of her former step-children. “Greta’s always been a spoiled gold-digger. That boy suffers from an eating disorder that upsets the humors in his brain, and neither are forgiven for locking me in the oven. An entire afternoon I was there, until my sweet husband came home from cutting wood, God rest his handsome soul.”

She placed her gnarled hands on theirs and pulled them together across the table. “All of the misery they brought me, it was worth it for the short time I had with their father. I didn’t have many years with Magda’s father, either—he died a soldier, so young that she has no memories of him even—but I would not trade my marriages for anything.

“I sell many cures,” she continued as Maggie rolled her eyes at Rob. “But going through life alone is a disease against which I can offer no defense. Is it a coincidence that married couples live long lives together, while bachelors and spinsters so often find themselves in an early grave? I think not.”

“Are you the exception that proves the rule?” Maggie asked.

“Pah! I was never a spinster. I had two precious marriages to sustain me in my old age, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Moth-er,” Maggie growled.

“Listen to me as I teach you a lesson. You do not want to go through life alone.”

“I’m not alone. Not like before, I mean. But marriage isn’t some magic spell that’s going to keep me happy.”

“Well,” she said, dabbing her mouth with the edge of her shawl. “I suppose there’s some truth in that, daughter mine.”

Halfway home, and just as the stars were coming out, they found an inn with a spare room and an outbreak of vomiting. Rob examined a few patients, trotted out his hand-washing lecture, and declined the innkeeper’s offer of a late meal. Rob and Maggie did accept some water with a splash of wine as a disinfectant, and a pair of choice seats by the fire.

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you,” Maggie explained. “There’s nobody I’d rather marry, you understand, but I’m just not ready for that.”

“Ready for what?”

“Ready for . . . shit, I don’t know. My mother got me thinking about my father, and then my step-father. One lost to war, another to the wolves.”

“Wolves? You mean literal wolves?”

“We think so. His body was never found, but I can still hear them howling while I huddled with my gran in her tiny cabin.”

“Maggie, that’s terrible.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is. I’ve gone on to have other men in my life, but it never ended well. Some treated me like property. Others were violent. Some simply left, or I left them before they could think to do it first. I suppose I’m a little worried that you’ll go, too. Which sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but there it is.”

“Maggie. I’m never going to leave you.”

“Never? Because sometimes I hear you and Zev talking about finding a way home, whatever that means.”

“Oh, boy. That’s . . . complicated. You know, I’ve sort of explained where I’m from, and how I ended up here one day.”

“Yeah. It didn’t make much sense.”

“It didn’t to me, either, and I lived through it.”

“Could you disappear again someday? Go back without me?”

Rob shook his head. “Not by choice. Never. If Zev and I ever find a way back home, and if we decide to go—lots of big ‘ifs’ here—I’ll take you with me. I mean, if you want to go.”

Maggie touched her belly. “Yeah. You bet I’d go. No way you’re leaving me here to raise your child alone.”

“Hans!” Rob called out as he and Maggie walked through the front door of his townhouse. “Zev! Anybody home?”

Zev leaped down the stairs, three at a time. “Dude, you’re back! Hey, I just had the most amazing experience in the outhouse.”

“Ah, Zev—”

“I mean, the poop was just blasting out of me like cannonballs. It was like, boom-boom-boom! Never felt anything like it.”

“—we have company, okay? Maggie’s here.”

“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m hardly company.”

“Sorry, Mags. Hey, what do you guys think of my new duds?” Zev twirled to show off a brilliant green tunic trimmed with blue piping along the sleeves. “Cyn let me pick out whatever I wanted from her hubby’s closet to replace my torn shirt. That dude is one serious clothes horse.”

“What were you doing in her husband’s closet?” Rob asked.

“Nothing,” Zev said with an innocent look on his face. “Just getting dressed. Cyn literally tore my shirt off the moment we were alone, and you didn’t want me to walk home naked, did you?”

“Oh, God,” Rob said, holding a hand to his forehead. “Please tell me you and Cynda—”

“Took precautions? Dude, I blew my nut outside the danger zone, so no worries about her getting preggers, unlike some people we won’t mention. But man, that chick is wild! You wouldn’t believe the shit we did. It was like being in a medieval porno. Okay, brainstorming a title now . . . The Sword in the Bone? No, wait, I’ve got it—The Cunterbury Tales!”

“Zev!” Rob spoke sharply. “Way too far.”

“Yo, chill. The Prince is charming enough, but he’s totally into dudes, so he and Cyn have this arrangement. As long as he gets to pop the heir and we don’t swing from the chandeliers, it’s all cool-io.”

“I’d worry less about the Prince,” Maggie said, “and more about her.”

“See?” Zev said. “Maggie’s on board.”

Rob shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

“Yeah, Cynda did kind of throw me out of the castle and told me never to come back. Not in daylight, anyway. Hey, hold that thought, I need to hit the outhouse again. I’m not sure what I’ve been eating, obviously something rich. Palace food, what are you gonna do?”

As Zev scooted out the back, Rob turned to Maggie to apologize, although he hardly knew where to begin.

She spoke first. “Which side of your family did you say he hails from?”

“I’m not sure,” Rob said, slumping onto his work bench. “Nobody’s gone as far as to actually claim him, but he shows up on holidays and just before mealtimes, so we seem to be stuck with him.”

Maggie took a pitcher of water from the table and poured a cup for Rob and one for herself. “Has he always been like that?”

Rob sighed. “How do I explain Zev? He’s the person you’d kill to have on your team for charades, because he’ll do whatever it takes to win: take off his pants, sing show tunes, go absolutely crazy in public without a trace of shame. With Zev, there’s a lot more doing than thinking, but on the other hand, it’s never predictable. Sometimes I wish I had a little of that.”

Maggie shrugged before draining her cup. “I have enough excitement in my life. On the whole, I think I prefer predictable. Now, I should go. I’m late to meet Golda and take on my deliveries. You’ll be all right without me for a couple of days?”

Rob leaned in for a kiss. “I suppose, but take it easy. I know you’re tough, but pregnant ladies need to rest once in a while, okay?”

“You worry too much, but I’ll take care.”

Maggie had just marched out the door when Zev returned. “Hey, where’d the Magster go?”

“She’s off to work,” Rob said. “Speaking of which, it sounds like we need to find you a new job.”

“Yeah, it’s a problem. I got a couple coins from Cynda, but that won’t last. And I’m not sure I can go back to working for you.”

“After yesterday, I’m not sure I’d have you.”

Zev threw up his hands. “Dude, I can’t even think about that. Look, Hans is out scrounging for supplies, and that Frog guy went to fetch some more firewood. That leaves you and me, cuz.”

“Don’t get too excited. I’m bushed after the past couple days.”

“Dude, that’s just Newton’s Fourth Law of Motion talking.”

“Newton’s what?”

“The Fourth Law. You know: ‘Objects resting at home tend to stay at home, especially after a hard day at work’—something like that, physics was never my strong suit. What I’m trying to say is we should go out tonight and get fucking loaded.”