Beth rolls her eyes. Grandmother, right. (Right? It sounds like it probably is, but it also sounds French, and she never took it in school.) Advice is a little beyond her--it's Byerly, it's impossible to come up with a line or two that would make his life better--but she hmms over the possibility for a moment. "Trust other people, but don't let them hurt you. You think they have any cake left?"

That was the best part of this entire night, the best among a lot of good things. Along with the hot food, some kind of dense cake made denser by all the alcohol it's been soaked in. It's not all that sweet, and it's definitely not the kind of birthday cake smothered in frosting that you start to miss when you've lived in the wilderness too long, but it's still dessert. There's something special about dessert, even a cake that feels like it could be used as a doorstop.