"Leave some of him for me, you greedy girl!" She shouted, running close to the ferocious pair. "Quin~ how about we build Kaeli a bower?"
Quinlan didn't put her down.
He shifted her weight to one arm, palm settling under her backside, and walked them both to the hollow between two great roots where the snow-light pooled. His free hand rose, and the earth answered.
The floor of the hollow breathed in and swelled into a broad, moss-deep couch between the roots, its edges rolled like a bedframe grown rather than built. Magma, banked to a whisper, slid into the stone far beneath until the moss went from warm to sun-warm.
A sphere of flame the size of a heart pinched itself into being above the hollow and hung there, small and patient as a private sun, and a curtain of moving air drew itself around the whole of it, keeping the heat in and the winter's opinions out.
