Something woke Andy from his sound sleep, nestled in her wings, in her arms. A tread on Craig’s inviolable soil, someone afoot on his brother.

Slowly, he got himself loose of Mimi and sat up and looked around.

The golem standing before him was small, and its eyes glowed red. It bent over and set something down on the earth, a fur-wrapped bundle of smoked meat.

It nodded at him. He nodded back.

“Thank you,” he said.

Mimi put her hand on his calf. “Is it okay?”

“It’s right,” he said. “Just as it was meant to be.”

He returned to her arms and they kissed. “No falling in love,” she said.

“Perish the thought,” he said.