She smirked at me. “Would you like me to leave?”
The problem was—and italwayswas when it came to her—that I should’ve said yes. The workshop wasmyspace. The place I came to escape everyone else and I should keep it as a Hanna-free space for my own sanity. But instead, I hesitated.
Ribbon had already hopped closer to her, settling by her boots as if Hannabelongedhere. As if she’d been here the whole time. A part of our tiny family of two. And Hanna, without asking, had filled the air with something softer, more welcome, than the echoing silence that usually filled it.
“No,” I told her, finally, trying to keep my tone even. “Just… don’t break anything.”
Her grin widened. “Deal.”
She wandered around the workshop the way a ray of sunshine might. Quiet, curious and touching nothing but noticing everything. I tried to get back to work, but it was useless. Every movement from her tugged my attention in her direction.
The sound of her bracelets clinking, the little hum that she made when she found a piece that she liked or the way that she kept glancing toward Ribbon as if he might start a conversation. Everything she did was settling something inside of me. A restlessness that I’d never been able to control.
For someone who claimed she wasn’t here to socialize, she had a remarkable way of undoing all the peace I thought I needed and replacing it with her presence. I should have been annoyed. Iwantedto be annoyed. To tell her to get the hell out of my workshop and leave me alone. But even I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not if she was looking for a little break from everything else.
I pretended to go back to what I was doing, but the entire time I just stared at her out of the corner of my eye, hoping thatshe would stay longer. And to both my chagrin and delight, she did.
The first time she wandered up to the roof had been an accident. But every time after that had been because she wanted to be here. Near me. And I didn’twantto savor and appreciate it, but I did.
In fact, it became a pattern. Every few afternoons, just when the light started to turn that beautiful honey color over Grebath’s rooftops, the door would creak open and Hanna would appear. Always with something in her hands.
Sometimes it was tea, sometimes it was a basket of herbs or half-finished potion ingredients that justneededthe sunset light. Once she’d had a pie that she’sswornwas an ‘experiment’. And it had exploded. Twice.
And then of course there was Ribbon. He obviously loved her. The traitor.
He’d croak and hop straight over to her the moment she arrived, abandoning me completely. She’d crouch down, murmur nonsense words to him, and then feed him dried flies that I was certain she stored in her pockets. I ignored the pang of affection at the gesture, instead turning it into annoyance. Meanwhile, I’d keep working—or at least pretend to.
Today was no different. She was sitting cross-legged on a stool near the workbench, her elbows on her knees, watching me sketch the outline for a new sculpture I was planning. I could feel her gaze as though it was sunlight through glass.
“What?” I muttered without looking up.
“Nothing,” was her answer, as always. She said the same thing whenever I caught her looking at me. And the fact that shedidlook at me shouldn’t please me as much as it did.
Yet my stupid insides were always game for her gaze. But this time, there was a prolonged pause.
“Well,something,” she admitted, and I stiffened. “You just have this little frown when you’re concentrating. It’s cute.”
I froze mid-line, my lip curling. “Nothing about me iscute.”
“You’re wrong about that,” she said cheerfully. “And it’s cuter that you pretend you’re not.”
I set the pencil down on the workbench before narrowing my eyes at her with an irritated look. “You’re supposed to be working on your potions or... whatever the hell it is that witches do with their free time, am I right?”
“I’m multitasking,” she said, smiling that secret smile of ours again. No. Notours. Hers.It had nothing to do with me. “I’ve decided that I’m going to start studying creative concentration in orcs. It’s forscience.”
I huffed out something between a laugh and a groan. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” she said, reaching down to scratch Ribbon’s head, “you still let me stay.”
That statement hit a little too close to home for me. I didn’t have a response for it, so I went back to what I was doing. The silence between us stretched—comfortable this time. The kind that filled itself with the sound of tools, wind and soft croaks from the third member of our little group.
After a while, Hanna stood and wandered toward one of the shelves, where I kept half-finished metal flowers. She picked up a small one—a simple bronze stemmed flower with petals that I’d never quite gotten right.
“This one’s my favorite,” she whispered, and maybe she didn’t mean for me to hear it, but I did. “It’s a little crooked, but it’s trying its best.”
I glanced over at her, intrigued. “Do you like broken things, then?” I asked, and while I wasalmostcertain I meant it as ajoke, the question was filled with something that wasn’t quite literal. Something that bothered me.
She looked at me over her shoulder. “I like honest things,” she said instead of giving a straight answer.
