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She tapped the ledger. “Then why is my mother arriving next Saturday to a bedroom with a tarpaulin where the roof should be? I’ve been up there twice since the fair. The framing’s up but not much else. And every time I ask about it, somebody hands me a spelled bun and changes the subject.” Her jaw dropped, and her brow furrowed. “Somebody hands me a spelled bun. And changes the subject. Goran.”

“Hm.”

“Every time. It’s been buns every time. I’m going to find some answers.”

We went upstairs together, me nearly bumping my head on the lintel. The scaffolding was up with a tarpaulin lashed on top. Framing, true and square and weathered gray. The studs had been up for a month. Good sawn lumber had been stacked under cover, enough to finish the job twice over.

Also untouched.

A shingle bundle leaned against the wall. The site had the look of a field somebody plowed one furrow every morning so the neighbors would believe there was ongoing progress.

Rain stood with her arms crossed on her chest, her breath fogging, glaring up at the roof. “A month. That’s not slow, that’s—” She turned to me. “You build things. In your professional judgment, what is going on here?”

“This has been done on purpose.”

The rattle of the Weatherby feed wagon rang out on the street, and we went to the window, peering down.

The twins saw us.

I’d watched those boys move stock through gates their entire lives. Neither of them had ever done anything as fast as what followed. Struan hauled the team left, Nastru’s arm went out and pointed at nothing. And the wagon, lumber and imps and all, wheeled around and flew away in the direction it had come from at twice the speed. It took the corner and was gone.

A door shut somewhere.

A granny’s curtain twitched.

Silence echoed around us.

“Did the entire village sabotage my roof?” Rain asked in a tiny voice.

I stood in the cold, going back through everything. Rufus’s shingle order lost twice, which I’d heard about and thought nothing of. The twins’ mis-deliveries running like a comedy. Every clue stacked on top of the others.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“But.”

“But I know where they’ll all be at sundown,” I said. “And so do you.”

The Silver Bell. Where everything in this village got decided.

Or where everything already had been decided.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

RAIN

We walked into the Silver Bell at sundown, and when the village saw our faces, they scrambled for the exits.

Bram Weatherby reached for the cellar door. Mrs. Honeycake leaped from her chair and snatched up her cane. Old Tom slid down his bench toward the back hall. Only Melissant licked one finger and turned a page of her book, settling in.

Goran shut the front door behind us and stood against it.

The Silver Bell had one other door, behind the bar, and every soul in that room was staring at it. Rufus wasn’t moving, because Rufus must’ve decided to take it standing.

“Evening,” he said. “Ale for you folks?”

“My roof,” I said. “Rufus.”

“Ah,” Rufus said.