“Exactly.” She breathed in, breathed out. “Hold the ring. Both hands, outer rim. If it flexes, give it back. Do not muscle it.”
“I can not-muscle with the best of them,” he said, but there was no smirk in it. He set his hands where she’d shown him, fingers splayed, forearms tense. He didn’t look away from her.
Maude touched the shadowbell wax with a warmed pin. The seal gave. Scent rose: grief dressed in cool water and moonlight. The ley line under the fountain answered, a low chord deep in her bones.
“Okay. On my mark.”
She spoke the weave and pulled. Her will coaxed the interlock’s hungry, misguided binding to recognize the ring as the safest, most delicious place to go, to curl into, to sleep inside. Wesley’s grip flexed when the ring arched—just enough give to keep it from cracking, just enough resistance to keep it taut. He didn’t hum. He timed his breath to hers instead: three counts in, three out. It steadied the draw. The resin held. The blackthornclicked, tiny locks catching. The night-apple peel dulled the pull. The ring warmed in their hands; the chalk circle lifted gooseflesh up Maude’s arms.
Around them, the square…adjusted.
It didn’t warp or howl this time. It exhaled.
The cracked star-tile under the wyvern brightened, blue and amber sharpening at the edges as if someone had just wiped them clean. The string of lanterns above them stopped their uneasy flicker and settled into a calm, regular glow. The bobbing apples at a nearby stall, which had been floating two inches above the water, dropped back in with a pleasingplunk. A stack of woven baskets that had insisted on nesting themselves into a single wicker serpent split neatly back into separate baskets.
No fireworks. No drama. Just a hundred tiny alignments slipping into place.
Maude could hear the moment the crowd caught it. Conversations faltered. Someone whispered, “Did you feel that?” Another: “The fountain’s singing differently.” The teenagers with swords lowered their props and stared. The fiddler’s tune slid from jittery to something steady enough to dance to.
Wesley didn’t look up. He held the ring until Maude touched his wrist—a small nod—and only then did he ease the ironvine onto the chalk, the resin seam settled, the glow banked to a quiet purr.
Maude’s mouth tasted like copper. She let her hands fall, knees rubbery with relief. “It’s grounded,” she said, mostly to the ring, partly to Wesley.
She should have known the quiet wouldn’t last.
A citrus-slick voice cut the air: “Well, isn’t that convenient.”
Alderman Veyne, who had never met a ledger he didn’t love, arrived with two inspectors in tow. He smelled faintly of lemon oil and success someone else paid for. His smile to the crowd was for show; the one he aimed at Maude had teeth. “The same witch who created a spectacle on Blightbend now appears at the very heart of Market Square, performing an unsanctioned ritual.”
Maude stared him down, deadpan as a gravestone. “Good evening to you, too, Alderman.”
Veyne sniffed. “People have been…concerned,” he said, smoothing his tone. “Strange phenomena. Merging. Malfunctions. It would be a terrible shame if the source of those disturbances turned out to be the very same person who has already brought this town so much grief.”
The words slid slick as eels into the space between the crowd and Maude. She could feel the crowd straining, ready to be told who the monster was so they could rehearse their courage.
Maude’s jaw ticked. “The ‘source’ was a miscast I already contained,” she said, flat. “Now I’m cleaning what bled out.”
Veyne tutted. “More trouble, then.” He spread his hands, palms open, as though addressing a court instead of a crowded square. His voice carried with practiced poise. “I ask only what any reasonable magistrate would: how very convenient that the one who births the malady also profits from its cure.”
Heat climbed Maude’s neck. “I’m not profiting.”
“Are you not?” He stepped closer, the sour tang of bitter wine and stale breath rolling over her. As he advanced, the crowd shifted with him, a restless rustling through the square. “I hear of your unsanctioned singing loaves at the west market. Of custard buns that glow faintly in the dark, wanted or not. Of pear tarts laced with petals that compel confessions after the third bite. Entire trays of honey-cakes sprouting tiny, grasping arms the moment a child cries. And who, pray, brewed those? Who reaps the coin when half this town cannot stop whispering of them? You have made yourself the talk of every corner and every hearth. Do not insult me by pretending otherwise.”
He smoothed his sleeve, his voice lowering to silk. “Let me remind you,witch: there was a time when your kind were not permitted such liberties. When strictures bound every working, and no charm, no tincture, no careless whisper of magic escaped regulation. Those were safer years. If it were left to me, theywould return. And though I stand outnumbered in vote, I do not doubt their hearts will turn—after all of this. This?—”
“Enough.” Wesley’s voice cut across the square, firm. His hand clamped down on Veyne’s shoulder and all but shoved him back, away from Maude. “Tell me, Magistrate, is it illegal to create things that make people happy? Things they ask for by name? Show me in your statutes where it’s written that a loaf that sings, or a tart that glows, or a sweet that makes a child laugh, is a crime.”
Veyne sputtered, face mottling, but Wesley pressed on. “Yes, Maude cast a spell that misfired. A single mistake, quickly mended. No shops ruined—no harm that lasted longer than a week’s gossip. And since then? She’s turned a mishap into something good. I’ll ask again—slowly, so you can answer this time. Is happiness illegal? Is joy? Show me the line, the clause where kindness requires a permit.”
Veyne shoved himself free of Wesley’s grip, robes snapping like sails in a sudden gust. “That is hardly a kindness, Mr. Rivers. She is collecting coins for her unsanctioned concoctions!”
Wesley’s eyes rolled heavenward. “So this is about her character, then? Because I’ll tell you now—you don’t want to drag Maude Harrow’s name into question. Not with me standing here.” His gaze cut narrow. “I don’t see you stocking the healers’ shelves when they run dry. She’s the one handing blister balm to carpenters who forget to pay. She’s the one letting the widow by the weir trade in buttons—and still sending her home with what she needs. She has done more for this town than any of you, clutching ledgers tight and pointing fingers.”
If Maude’s face burned any hotter, she’d combust right there in the square. Saints save her—Oli had to have told Wesley. That infuriating, ridiculous, wonderful menace of a friend.
“You all tell stories about Bailey Harrow,” Wesley said then, and the square went still. Even Veyne’s mouth snapped shut with a click. “You say he kept this street stitched together. You say he saved your sons from fevers, your fields from blight.Revered him.” His gaze swept over the faces gathered. “But when he died—tell me—how many of you walked across Blightbend to check on his daughter?”
The worddaughterstruck Maude like a hammer to the chest. It always did. She never traded on it; she kept it hidden the way you keep a bruise covered. Hearing it spoken aloud—something that belonged only to her—made her vision wobble. Her knuckles whitened around the night-apple ribbon.
