Belatedly, she realized she should have led with saying they were intended as payment, for her borrowing tools and supplies. “Well, they were for you and Sian, but not all at once. And they weren’t a gift.”
“Oh?” This was a different “oh.” Curious and a little wary.
“You see, I need to build jam shelves.”
“You need shelves for jam?” Larran asked. “Why jam?”
“Exactly what I’ve been wanting to know,” Caz said.
Because she had the raspberry bushes. Because the recipe was in her parents’ cookbook. Because jam made people happy. You couldn’t eat jam and be sad. It was fundamentally impossible. Besides, it reminded her of tea with her parents, and it was a good memory—the three of them around the hearth in their tiny apartment in Alyssium, her mother reading aloud from a book, her father making comments that would make her laugh, and all of them having tea with jam on slightly stale bread that her parents had bought in the market in exchange for a bit of her father’s work with mending nets. It was a taste that came with near-forgotten emotions. But she didn’t say any of that. She simply said, “It’s nice.”
“Okay,” he said. And didn’t ask any more questions.
She liked him all the better for that.
Chapter Eleven
Kiela stirred the vat of boiling sugar and raspberries while Larran hammered together the frame for the bookshelf. It would run half the length of the room, from floor to rafters, partitioning the tiny shop in front from the kitchen and living area. She’d already scooted her daybed into the back room, cramming it between her parents’ bed and the crates of forbidden books. She’d neaten that room up later, when no one but Caz was here. At least she’d already cleaned, dusted, and hung lavender from the rafters. She’d also washed and rehung the lace curtains over the windows. So it would just be a matter of what to do with the daybed. The practical thing would be to claim her parents’ bed as hers. The big bed had lots of extra room for her and—her eyes slid to Larran . . .Don’t be ridiculous,she scolded herself. Lots of extra room for her and whatever stack of books she wanted to read late into the night.
As he worked, he was singing softly, a sea lullaby that she vaguely remembered from when she was little. He had a pleasant voice, soft and kind of furry.
She hadn’t meant for Larran to build the shelves for her. In fact, after the chimney incident, she’d been determined to do it herself, and if he’d insisted, she would’ve . . . Well, hehadn’tinsisted. He’d simply mentioned that raspberry jam was his favorite, and Caz had negotiated for his labor. She’d been outmaneuvered by a plant.
Oddly, she didn’t mind as much as she thought she would.
He didn’t seem to feel the need to fill the silence with chatter, which was nice. Caz was acting as his assistant, passing him nails as he needed them and checking to ensure the angles were ninety degrees and the boards were straight. The spider plant had found a marble lost between the floorboards and was using it to ensure all the boards were level.
“What’s that song?” she asked when Larran reached the final note.
“An old herder lullaby. We sing it to the mares to calm them when they’re about to foal. Usually works better if you can keep a tune. Sorry—didn’t realize I was singing loudly.”
“It was pretty.” She’d heard it before—but where and when? She hummed the melody, trying to remember the words.The sea was a cradle and . . .something, something . . .the stars will watch over you. . . “I think I knew it once.”
“You did. I remember you singing it.”
Kiela snorted. “You’re remembering wrong. Couldn’t have been me. I never sing where anyone can hear me, due to the fact that I sound like a chicken attempting to warble.”
Caz stifled a laugh, which came out like a snort. He’d heard her sing before, once and only once, at an official ceremony for new library inductees, and she knew he could verify she lacked any semblance of pitch. Singing hadn’t been optional, but the cream-puff-and-chocolate desserts had been worth it.
“You didn’t know I was there,” Larran said.
Pausing as she stirred the jam, Kiela twisted around to look at Larran. He’d framed the top and sides of the shelf-wall and was marking off where each shelf would be. It would blend in pleasantly with the rest of the cottage. “You spied on me when we were kids?”
He blushed. “Not exactly and not intentionally. You were in your family’s cove with my foal . . .”
Wait, wait, wait—she remembered a baby merhorse in the cove. It had been there for a few months one summer, and she’d helped take care of it. She remembered bottle-feeding it. “Why was a foal in our cove?” She wasn’t sure she’d ever questioned it, but in retrospect, it was odd. It should’ve been with its mother or its herd, or at least its herder. “You said it was yours?”
“I’ve wanted to be a herder for as long as I can remember. Used to hang out near the Caltreyan herd all the time. Another nail, Caz?” The spider plant extended a tendril holding a nail, and Larran hammered it into place before continuing. “There was a mare that died giving birth, and the foal wasn’t expected to live. So I took responsibility for it. My parents, though . . . They owned the only grocery store in town, do you remember it? Near the fountain?”
Checking the jam again, Kiela said, “Yes.” No one had liked the grocer’s. She remembered her parents used to grumble about the overpriced spices and the way the man behind the counter would lean his thumb on the scale to overcharge for a cut of meat. Her mother had once bought a bag of flour that had turned out to be infested with ants. But there had been no other option on the tiny island.
“They wanted me to inherit the family business, but I had other dreams. Your parents were kind enough to allow me to raise the foal in secret in their cove. One morning my father . . . Well, suffice it to say, I was late to the cove. I remember being terrified that the foal wouldn’t make it. When they’re that young and fragile, they need regular care. But when I finally made it, you were already there, making sure the foal was fed and safe. You were singing to it.”
He’d said before that her parents had been kind to him and that she had been too—This is what he meant.She’d been kind to his foal. No wonder she didn’t remember. She’d had no idea it was his. “Anyone would have helped care for it.”
He hammered in another nail and said quietly, “Not my parents.”
She hadn’t known that the foal was there in secret. “But what did your parents expect—”
