He warmed goat’s milk in an iron pot and fed the babies by wooden spoon: tiny sips, clumsy at first, then greedy. He cleaned the woman’s legs with a warm cloth, rinsing blood from scraped knees and deep bruises left by heavy boots. She slept like the dying sleep—thin, even, stubborn.

When she finally stirred, her voice was a rasp:

“Marabel. Marabel Quinn.”

“Silas,” he said.

Her gaze slid to the basket. One of the girls sneezed. Marabel’s eyes brimmed, but her body was too broken for sobbing. Silas tucked an elk-fur cloak beneath the babies; its warmth held.

By the second dawn, color crept back into Marabel’s face. The girls—Eloise, Ruth, and June—woke hungry and loud, the purest kind of mercy.

Silas didn’t ask questions. Silence, in its way, was kindness. He sharpened a knife on a wet stone, and the cabin settled around the simple facts of fire and breath.