The day after the harvest celebration, the taste of bread that had been salted with what Rian and those who had gone with him had managed to gather from the ocean, soaked in roasted tail meat fat, and dipped in stew still lingered on Lori's tongue. She was bemusedly surprised to find that breakfast included little chunks of stale bread floating in her stew, growing soggy and mushy.

"Why do we have stale bread?" she asked.

"It happens," Rian said. "Some people were too full to eat their portion, or just didn't feel like it. Although I think this is more a case of the kitchen crew making some extra in case some people wanted more, and there being not as many of that as they had thought there would be. It's not like the bread went to waste. We're eating it right now."

Lori grunted, acknowledging the point. "The fact there's any waste at all of a limited resource—"

"Again, we're eating it, so it hasn't been wasted," Rian interrupted. "It's merely been… delayed, so as to achieve a new form of delicious."

"It's soggy bread disintegrating in my stew," Lori said.

"Well, they're working with what they have," Rian shrugged. "And it serves a purpose. It thickens the stew into a saucy consistency, so it's different from how we usually have it, and is basically the best way to use it right now. We haven't gotten any eggs from the chokers we're keeping yet, and if you want to reuse old bread properly, you need egg."

Umu and Mikon looked at him sideways as Lori wondered how he knew that. "How do you know that?"

"Why wouldn't I know that? It's hardly a secret."

"You know about cooking but you don't know how to do your own laundry?" Lori said blandly as Mikon and Umu nodded, agreeing with the question.

"I like knowing how to make the things I like to eat," Rian shrugged, then glanced sideways at Umu. "And I've been asking you to teach me how to do my own laundry."

"I'm busy," Umu said, looking like she was trying one of Mikon's smiles and… well, clearly only trying. "How did you even manage to get stone on the inside of your trousers?"

"I displeased her Bindership with one joke too many, and she made her displeasure known," Rian said.

The three women glanced at her.

"Oh, don't look so afraid, he's more useful alive than dead," she said. "So I'm not replacing him with Mikon any time soon."

Rian blinked. "Wait, Mikon's my replacement?"

"Only if I have no other choice," Lori said offhandedly. She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Or you leave again. Or you die. Or if I just need a lady for some reason."

Rian looked between Lori and Mikon. "Are you… threatening her with becoming a lady? Or me? It could go either way."

Lori had another spoonful of stew. He was right, it was a little thicker, and the traces of soggy bread wasn't as distracting as she had initially thought. "Rian, stop being silly and eat. You're making a farm for me today, remember?"

"I'll point out that I have no idea how to build a farm inside a dungeon," Rian said. "I don't even know how to build one outside of one."

"It's not that hard," Lori said. "The biggest issue is providing drainage so that the roots of any crops don't get waterlogged and start rotting. Beyond that, it's a matter of maintaining a proper temperature and providing the right kind of light so that the crops will grow, both of which I have extensive experience with."

"That… sounds about right, but how do you know?"

Lori held up the almanac.

"Oh right, silly me."

"Yes, but you're still useful anyway," Lori agreed. "The almanac was helpful in informing me as to the importance of drainage, so the third level's floor will have to be prepared by men with tools to break apart the rock while I soften it for them to make it easier." That hadn't been in the book, but it included an illustration of the increasingly fine layers of rock that needed to be under the topsoil so that the water could drain properly. Lori already had the idea to have all that water drain into a cistern so it could be used to water the plants again, since all that water had to go somewhere, and she needed it to not flood her Dungeon. "Once the matter of preparing the ground so that it won't flood and therefore rot has been dealt with, it can be treated like any other crop, except we don't have to worry about dragons destroying it, or chokers and bugs devouring it, provided we manage to keep the latter out of my Dungeon."

"There… isn't a lot of space in the Dungeon just yet," Rian said skeptically. "At best, the grain we harvest will make for a decent seed crop, but we won't be feeding everyone in the demesne with it any time soon. And that's if we manage to get it to grow properly at all."

"We can continue to expand," Lori said, waving her hand dismissively. "There is more potential space underground than there is across the entire surface of my demesne. It will take time, but it should be doable, and it will all be constantly protected from the coming of a dragon."

"Until we get three islandshells dropped on us at the same spot," Rian said.

Lori waved her hand again. "Yes, but you can say that about anything."

"I suppose so…" He sighed. "Well, I still want to prioritize surface planting. Right now, we have more cleared space above ground than in the dungeon, and if we can plant it all with a winter crop, we'll actually be able to eat bread regularly when we harvest it. And we'll need to find more soil to bring down to the dungeon anyway, and I'd rather we do that after we've planted above ground. The compost pit isn't ready to be used for fertilizer yet, but we need to get started on a new one…" By the end, Rian seemed to be talking to himself more than her, frowning down and moving his fingers in the air as if he were drawing or writing something only he could see. "We still have the tools we used to dig out the dungeon originally… somewhere… and if not that we're at the point the smiths can make new ones…"

"As I said, I leave organizing it to you," Lori said. "I will be digging."

Rian trailed off, frowning thoughtfully. "It's not a lot of time," he said. "I don't know how much of the above-ground planting we'll be able to finish before winter, so there's a good chance we'll have to delay work on the Dungeon's farm until the cold starts." He hesitated. "Uh, are you planning to heat the Dungeon with magic over the winter, or are we going to have to start setting up braziers and stuff inside? Because otherwise keeping any crops in the Dungeon alive will be difficult."

Lori gave him a flat look. "Of course, I'll be heating the Dungeon. I live here, after all, why would I want to be cold?"

For some reason, Rian, Umu and Mikon all gave her the same look. "Why haven't you started yet?" Rian said.

Lori rolled her eyes. "Because it's not cold yet."

"Lori, it is freezing out there in the morning," Rian said. "I mean, it's not winter cold, but it's certainly a message that it's coming."

"It's not that bad," Riz said. "It's a nice, average summer, and it warms up more when the sun is out." She paused to think a moment. "So, yes, I suppose it's probably a little cold for you southerners."

Lori frowned. "What are you all talking about? It's not cold."

"No, it's definitely cold," Rian said. "I have a fire on every night now, though that's mostly because I don't have shutters on my windows yet. In fact, today I'm going to the plank shed and getting a few to block out my windows to keep the warm air in until the carpenters get around to making shutters for me."

"You're a lord, just tell them to make your shutters first!" Lori said, exasperated.

"No! I'm just one man. There are houses with children in them. I can wait."

Lori gave him a flat stare and sighed. "Erzebed, go and tell the carpenters to fit shutters over Rian's windows first."

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said promptly.

Rian looked between the two of them. "Wait, you call her 'Erzebed'?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I call her Erzebed? That's her name."

Rian blinked, tilted his head and shrugged. "All right, fair enough." He turned to Riz. "I thought your stint being her temporary-me was over?"

"Yes, but you need shutters on your windows," Riz said. "Families with children can sleep together and keep each other warm. You live alone."

"And you don't let us stay over at night," Mikon muttered. Umu sighed heavily.

"She didn't need to know that," Rian muttered back.

"I certainly didn't," Lori agreed. "But at least you don't need all that advice my mothers gave for convincing women to sleep with me. Now, eat and get started on my farms."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. "So, you're going to start heating the Dungeon now?"

"It's warm, it doesn't need to be heated yet," Lori said, rolling her eyes.

Rian sighed and held out his left hand towards her. "Lori… how cold is my hand?"

She rolled her eyes again and reached out to indulge him. She grasped his hand and blinked at how cold it was. It remained cold in her grasp, not warming or adjusting to be more comfortable to her. "You're cold. Why are you cold?"

"Because it's cold, Lori," Rian said. "And it's not just me. How have you not been able to tell?"

Lori frowned, letting go of Rian, and turned towards Erzebed. "Hand," she demanded. Her former temporary assistant dutifully held out her hand, and Lori grasped it. Cold. "Mikon." The weaver held out her hand as well. Lori took it. Cold.

She stared at her hand. Why… Oh!

Lori leaned back, twisted and reached down to touch the floor. It was cool under her touch for a moment before becoming pleasantly warm. She focused on the stone under her hand and felt firewisps. They were directly under her hand and there were fading traces of imbuement on them. She remembered hot food cooling to a pleasant temperature, her fingers not getting burned…

"Well, consider this one of your duties now," Lori said smoothly as she sat up straight again. "You'll need to point out to me how hot or cold it is if it seems like I might not be able to tell."

"How are you not able to tell?" Rian asked. "That kind of lack of sensitivity is concerning."

"It's part of being a Dungeon Binder," Lori said, her mind racing as she tried to find an explanation. "The temperature of the air around me is always warm." The demesne was like a part of her body since she had made her core. And as with her core replenishing her lightningwisps when she drew it from her nerves, the demesne's firewisps warmed nearly anything she came into contact with to keep her warm, including the very air around her. Other living people, however, were voids to her awareness of wisps, and even now she couldn't bind or imbue the wisps in their bodies… which was why their hands remained cold. "Unless I leave my demesne, in which case I'll probably feel as cold as anyone else. So I'm never leaving my demesne again, ever."

"That… makes sense…?" Rian said. "Well, as your lord in charge of telling you how cold it is, I'm telling you it's cold."

"Yes, yes, I'll heat my Dungeon," Lori said, waving a hand. "Cold will not be the reason why my Dungeon's farm fails."

"Then my work is now done," Rian said cheerfully.

Well, she supposed it would be a good opportunity to make some new bindings. There might even be something relevant she could try out in her new almanac! That was a cheerful thought.

Lori went back to eating her breakfast, ignoring the way Umu and Mikon were enthusiastically showering Rian in affection, the latter while pressing against an awkward-looking Riz, completely heedless of who were watching. Ugh, Rian was acting more and more like one of her mothers every day. Sighing, Lori focused on her food, already going over possible arrangements of bindings in her head.