The kitchen should smell like rosemary and whatever she calls that sauce nobody admits to liking but everyone takes seconds of. Instead it smells like Ridge and Finn attempting soup.
"Where is she?"
Ridge flinches. "Market. With Joss. Said something about yarn and nutmeg."
Yarn. She's been knitting something for weeks, won't tell me what, keeps hiding it when I walk in. Probably mittens because she worries about everyone's circulation.
"When?"
"Four hours ago? She said she'd be back for lunch prep."
Four hours. She's never gone that long. Finn's cutting carrots wrong—different sizes—and the detail shouldn't matter but it does.
My shadows coil tighter around my feet.
"Boss?" Ridge has stopped destroying vegetables. "Should we—"
"Keep cooking. She'll be upset if lunch is late."
I'm already moving. Mrs. Pembleton's yarn shop first. The bell sounds obscene in the quiet.
The old woman looks up from her knitting, sees me, freezes. Her eyes track the shadows pooling at my feet.
"Olivia Caldris. Was she here?"
Her hands shake. "I don't—who are you? What do you want with—"
The shadows spread across her counter. "Was. She. Here."
"No!" The word comes out strangled. "She usually comes Tuesday for her black wool order. I've been holding it special for her. Please, I don't want trouble—"
Black wool she didn't pick up. Today's Tuesday. She never misses her wool order. Mrs. Pembleton watches the darkness move with appropriate terror.
The spice merchant's next. He backs against his shelf, bottles rattling.
"The woman who buys nutmeg. Olivia. When did you see her?"
"I don't—are you—" His eyes fixate on the shadows curling around my wrists. "Haven't seen her today. She's very particular about her nutmeg, that one. Says the pre-ground stuff is basically sawdust. Please, I'm just a merchant—"
I follow her usual route until I reach the alley between Hemlock and Crane. Her scent lingers, faint under something else. Sanctified oil. The kind that makes my teeth ache. Radiant Court.
Tooth materializes from shadow—still looks queasy after. "Boss. Found something."
He leads me to a narrow side street. Coins scatter across muddy cobblestones. Her basket overturned, the reinforced handle broken. She loved that basket. A crumpled shoppinglist in her handwriting, smeared with street grime. Black wool, nutmeg, thread.
"Get everyone. Now."
Back at the estate, straight to the library. Her knitting basket sits by her chair where afternoon light hits. Inside: black wool, good needles, and a hat. Almost finished. Black, practical, warm.
Mine. Who else would she knit solid black for? But there, worked into the inside band where nobody would see: a line of blue thread. Dark blue, nearly invisible against the black. Her signature. Her secret.
My legs give out. I sink into her chair—lavender and paint—and my hands won't stop shaking. The shadows go completely still. For the first time in twenty-seven years, they stop moving entirely.
She noticed my ears get cold. When did she notice that? I've been freezing every winter for forty-one years and nobody's ever thought to do anything about it, and she was secretly knitting me a hat with her signature hidden inside.
The door explodes inward.
"WHERE IS SHE?"
