Merchants stopped by the store every day, trying to sell Baba and me their wares. “Silks spun by the masters of the Yunia Province,” they’d entice me. “Look at this marvelous satin, brought here from the heart of Frevera.”
“I’ve pearls from the Taijin Sea, all the way from the Kingdom of Kiata!”
Baba and I always shook our heads. We weren’t interested in their wares.
The merchants learned to wait until Keton was alone in the shop, for though my brother had grown a keen eye for selecting fabrics and restocking materials, his heart was the easiest to tug. Any story from a former soldier would loosen a few jens from his pocket.
I never chided him about it. A smile usually touched my brother’s mouth these days, and it had grown wider ever since we’d made the decision to visit Jappor in autumn.
Ammi lived there now, and she’d started a bakery near the main road that specialized in honeycomb cookies and lotus paste buns. Under Khanujin’s rule, women hadn’t been allowed to own property, but things were different since Empress Sarnai had come to power. I’d heard Ammi’s bakery was doing quite well. Well enough, I hoped, that her family might one day hear of it.
“We should visit,” Keton suggested at least once a week. “You love honeycomb cookies, don’t you, Maia?”
“Yes, but I’ve never known you to have a sweet tooth, brother!”
At that, he’d clamp his mouth shut. Even though he wouldn’t admit it, Keton was counting the days until we saw my friend again. The ghosts in his eyes were nearly gone. Nothing would banish them forever, but light danced in them more often now than not.
So today when he found me in the garden, looking far too solemn, I worried something had happened. “Keton, what’s—”
“You have a visitor,” he said.
Oh.I returned my attention to my silkworms. “If it’s Mister Chiran, tell him his jacket will be ready by eve—”
“It’s not a customer.”
Now I looked up. “Then who is it?”
“You’ll have to come see.”
My brother disappeared into the shop, and by the time I followed, there was no trace of him. I passed Baba, who was instructing the seamstresses to take a break.
“It’s almost lunchtime,” I muttered. “Who could possibly be visiting at this hour?” I hoped it wasn’t Calu, the baker’s son. While I’d been away, he had married a farmer’s daughter, and though he, thankfully, no longer turned his attentions to me, he pestered Baba and me for free mending.
It wasn’t a customer. And certainly not Calu.
I nearly dropped my basket when I saw him. I would recognize his silhouette anywhere, tall and lean, a slight bend in his back as he stooped to avoid hitting his head on the low doorframe. Black hair longer than I remembered, more than a few stray curls lingering over the boyish face I’d so dearly missed.
He was waiting for me to greet him, to run into his arms and plant a kiss on his mouth. It took all my restraint to hold back and say, instead, “You need a haircut.”
There. His expectant smile curved into the crooked grin I so loved, and amusement flecked his eyes.
“I wanted to make a dramatic entrance,” Edan replied. “Maybe fly through your window the way I used to, or send a thousand birds to write out your name in the sky.”
“But?”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to do this.” He bent down and kissed me. The basket in my hand fell to the ground with a quiet thump.
After the Six Winters’ War ended, I’d insisted Edan return to the Temple of Nandun to finish his studies with Master Tsring. It had been hard for us to part again, but I knew he loved magic the same way I loved sewing. I couldn’t deny him the chance to earn it back.
Besides, I needed a little time on my own. My customers knew better than to speak of my past as a demon, but even as the world forgot, I could not. Demons and wolf-shaped shadows still haunted my dreams every few nights. They were less regular now, but I didn’t think they would ever vanish completely.
I told Edan of my dreams in the letters we wrote each other every week. A slew of paper birds were exchanged between us, each a letter. Many days I’d awake at dawn to catch a new letter at my windowsill, and it helped ease my nightmares. Each letter, Edan signed with one of his “thousand names.”
“I didn’t expect you to return until the fall.”
“I finished my studies early,” he said, not without a hint of pride. “Seems after all these years, I still make a good pupil. And, I wanted to surprise you.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “So you’re done?”
