“Okay, so this does sound kind of bad,” he said. He flapped a hand at Ollas when he made a mournful sound. “But it isn’t ‘pack your bags and move’ kind of bad. What’s wrong with you? Since when is Ollas Nevin, the Homegrown Hero, a chickenshit?”
“Don’t,” Ollas growled. “Don’t call me that.”
“No, we’re doing this.” Gransen stood up, pointing accusingly at Ollas’s chest. “I know that people were annoying about the nickname, but Ollas, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t then and you haven’t now. Whatever happened with Eunny?—”
“You weren’t there. For any of it. You didn’t see?—”
“I don’t need to see! Because I know you. Whatever happened, you feel worse than you should. Or, you’re painting it as worse than it ever could be, because that’s who you are, you asshole.”
Ollas shook his head. “She probably hates me now.”
“She doesn’t, and she doesn’t mean what she said earlier, either—that stuff you overheard.” Gransen sighed. “Just give her a moment. Eun runs a bit hot, you know? But she doesn’t actually leave things unsaid. Not important shit.”
“Maybe I don’t really know her at all. Maybe you don’t, either.”
Gransen punched him in the shoulder. The still somewhat tender one.
“Ow.”
“Earthen take you,” Gransen said, exasperated. “Go say you’re sorry, and if she’s actually going to dump you, make her say it. Or let her, since you’re feeling so repentant. But give her a chance to speak instead of react.” He snatched Ollas’s job opportunities from the desk and skipped out of reach.
“Granse!”
“Pity party’s over. We’ll re-evaluate these if there’s a need. A real one. Not while you’re still wallowing.”
“I don’t even— She’s not at Belle.”
“Ollas.” Gransen simply sighed, the sound violent enough to shake his frame. On that enlightening note, he turned around and left.
Ollas stared after his friend. “What the…?”
Eunny was done with him, at least for the moment. Didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want anything to do with the magic she hated so much.
Gransen had charged him with getting answers. With talking to Eunny, giving her a moment to process that which Ollas had already had the comfort of knowing. She deserved that time, and so did he. Time, and one last try with all honesty bared.
He had to find her.
Where would she go, still reeling from a confrontation with her magic?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bracing herself for the creak, Eunny pushed open the repair café’s back door. Even when she’d first opened, it had been heavily scarred, scavenged from another shop down the street. The café’s roof collapse had added a few more gouges to the wood, but someone—probably Gransen—had sanded and sealed the damage. Now they added character instead of being a hazard.
The door swung open on quiet hinges. No grumpy squeal of metal or rough scrape of wood improperly set in the frame dragging against the floor. Nothing to remind Eunny that Song’s Scrap needed to partake in its own services.
Wariness bumping shoulders with curiosity, Eunny walked inside. Song’s Scrap looked…not bad. Even better inside than her brief glimpse through the window. It was a far cry from being fit for the public, but the mess she remembered had been cleared away. A faint scent of mildew remained around the bookshelves, but stronger was the feeling of various cleaning magicks at work. Humidity control charms dangled from the ceiling. The debris had been cleared away and the elements kept out by prodigious use of waxed cloth—Eunny’s hasty patch job replaced by one much better. She stopped to touch a length of fabric that was lashed down by the window. Sailcloth from the harbor, and not the cheap stuff. None of the enchantments worked into the fabric were body magic in nature, but the strength of the application tickled her senses all the same.
Eunny turned in a slow circle, struggling to take in the enormity of the changes. The organization, relatively speaking. Things were still broken, both permanent fixtures and backlogged repair jobs, but they weren’t in piles scattered all around. No leaky roof or assortment of water-catching vessels scattered around just asking to be tripped over. Some of the old supplies had been lost in the destruction, thus making for less junk to manage in the first place, but Eunny suspected the new, full shelves along the walls were the true reason for order. Those, and the quality of repairs to the café’s structure. Not her shitty patch jobs of cut corners and stubbornness.
On the main counter, she found an updated ledger. Orderly script filled the pages: schedules for continued repairs, a list of work orders complete with rough estimates of timeframes and costs, inventory management and multiple contacts noted down for some of the harder-to-obtain items. A separate booklet contained a small calendar with potential dates for a series of “communal cleanup quests” and “a cuppa and a clean.”
Gransen had been busy. Not alone, for Eunny spied her aunt’s hand in the café’s renovations, too, but the self-appointed manager had been up to the task. He’d proven to be a far better custodian of Song’s Scrap than Eunny.
But then, why wouldn’t he? It was easy to love something when your heart was in it.
Eunny sank onto a stool behind the counter, let her eyes drift around the space. Her repair café. The venture she supposedly cared for enough to put her name on it. Her fresh start, the new life she’d been determined to claim when she’d lost her will for the old one. When she’d escaped the hell of living in Graelynd, in Central, in the same house as her mother. The incessant questions and tests and scornful remarks, all aimed at getting Eunny’s magic back. Recovering. Finding it again, as if it was something that had merely fallen from her pocket.
Song’s Scrap was proof that she could give up the life she’d known and start over. That she wasn’t afraid to do it.
