The kettle
Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
The dented copper kettle on the south-window hook is the col-house's namesake and its heart. It was carried over the road for years before it was ever hung in a window, and when a small fire is lit beneath it on a dark morning it throws a low warm glow of copper light that travellers catch from further off than a small window ought to show — the one warm thing visible on the whole cold mountain. Nobody at the col can say quite how. "The kettle is always on" is not a rule anyone handed down. It is simply the truth of the house.
