Oli exhaled a breath that probably had five unprintable words braided into it. He rose stiffly, poured coffee that could have removed paint, and handed her a mug with both hands like she might refuse and bite him. She didn’t. She sat and let the steam hit her face and tried to look like a person instead of a badly concealed runic fire.
“And after this?” he asked when the coffee was half gone. “When this holds?”
“I’ll need to set three more,” she said. “At Mistwood’s cardinal edges. Weave them into Samhain’s warding net.” She watched him over the rim of her cup. “That night the veil thins, and magic moves like quicksilver. The only time the veil leans toward us instead of away.” Her lips curved, not quite a smile. “Which means I fucked the town up at the most opportune time possible. We’ll need bodies. People who won’t faint and ruin my geometry.”
“I can get you that,” he said. “If the vote goes my way, I can get you the city watch to keep the curious off your chalk. If the vote doesn’t go my way, I can get you Lydia as a brass band and a scandal—both distract nicely.”
“And Wesley,” she added before her brain could stop her mouth. “My magic runs cleaner through his process, and I hate it, and it’s true.”
Oli’s mouth did the slow, feline thing again. “Noted.” He paused. “But the magistrate’s seat—there are promises attached. I’m not proud of all of them. Some are…less than noble.”
“I assumed,” she said, dry as bone. “You’re you.”
He huffed a laugh that was only one-thirdperformative.
“And after Samhain?” she asked, because she liked to ruin conversations with reality.
“After Samhain,” he said, looking at the seam-loom instead of her, “I find out if I became part of the machine I hate, or if the machine made the mistake of letting me in. Either way, I’ll be loud about it.”
She stared at him, cataloging the dust along his jaw like war paint, the neat bite at his thumb from where the thorn had caught, and the stubborn light in his eyes.
Irritatingly heroic.Her best friend.
The loom purred. Somewhere in the town, a single bell rang once. Not a duet. Clean.
Maude stood. The room wavered and then behaved. She picked up the seam-loom and felt the hum climb into her palms, travel her arms. Not cured; held. It would have to be enough for now.
“Congratulations,” she told Oli, deadpan. “You’re hired.”
“For what?”
“Assistant. Bone-sifter. Political fox. Whatever. Don’t die.”
“I’ll pencil that in between committee meetings.”
She snorted—small, involuntary, almost a laugh. He looked like he’d frame it and hang it in the foyer.
“Go,” she said, because the hour had gone cobalt at the edges of the window. “Sleep before you charm yourself into a stroke. I’ll set this one in the foundation and watch it for an hour.”
He hesitated at the door, one hand on the frame. “Maude.”
“Yes?”
“If you need me before Samhain,” he said, “need me. Don’t decide I’m part of the problem because it satisfies your brand.”
She made the face again. He grinned at having earned it, kissed the top of her head, and slipped into the dark.
Maude set the seam-loom into the shallow niche Bailey had carved under the hearthstone “for later” and warded it in with three slow words and a press of her palm. The cottage shivered like a dog settling into a new bed. The runes hummed. The airbecame easier to breathe. She leaned both hands on the mantel and let herself feel the smallest slice of relief a witch was legally allowed.
Then she straightened, pulled a clean sheet of paper toward her, and began writing the list for the other three looms. Names of corners. Names of volunteers she didn’t want to ask and would anyway. A single word underlined twice:Samhain.
She blew the lamplight thinner, and the cottage watched her work like it had from the first night she slept within its walls. She pretended not to notice that it was proud.
Seventeen
The square was emptying fast.
Maude pushed through the thinning tide of merchants with the single-minded focus of someone who had already rehearsed the scene a hundred times in her head. Lanterns guttered out one by one, shutters clapped shut. The air carried its familiar tangle—fish brine and tar, the smoke of meat stalls, the crisp bite of river water cut with salt off the bay. This was the Driftmarket, Mistwood’s sea-facing bazaar where ships docked low against stone steps slick with algae, where gulls wheeled lazy arcs overhead, calling for scraps.
