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“Telling people is how one finds out what people know. The blacksmith’s wife in Ferndale had two details even I hadn’t heard. Now. Where is he?”

Though he’d met her in the past, there was no preparing a male for Cyrena Trevil when she knew her daughter was involved. Goran had spent three evenings being coached by me, Asha, and once by Ginger through me.

He’d taken it gravely and said, “She raised you. I already like her.”

He waited beside his cart, in his best shirt, holding a crate of vegetables he’d assembled that morning. The best of everything. Crowned squash on top, its finest side facing forward. When we came toward him, he stood up straighter, and the lane went quiet.

My mother walked a slow circle around him, the same circle she walked around a new tea shipment. She arrived back at his front and looked all the way up.

“Goran Brack,” she said.

“Ma’am.”

“I’ve seen you come into my shop every week for the past few years. And I delivered your seed catalogs years back. Back then, you had one chair and a table the size of a small barn.”

“Two chairs now,” he said. “One’s Rain’s.” He held out the crate. “For you.”

My mother inspected the vegetables. Her eyebrow went up at the squash.

“Well,” she said, turning to me. “Put the kettle on, my darling. The big one. Your ogre and I are going to have a little talk.”

The talk took place inside Bellflower & Brew, at the front table, with the shop closed for the occasion. People streamed past, peering into the window before scurrying onward, as if we didn’t know they were spying. Old Tom didn’t bother hiding. He stood in front of the window, mug in hand, and grinned.

I was allowed to attend to manage the tea service, which meant I heard everything and couldn’t prevent her from asking anything.

Mama sat across from Goran, who’d brought over the oak bench and sat up straight. Mistral wandered around the shop, examining everything. The clock above the till started ticking after he’d tweaked something inside, and he apologized to it.

“Now,” said Mama, when I’d poured. “I’ve heard about this season in letters, in gossip, and in one truly outstanding account from the blacksmith’s wife in Ferndale involving a broken counter, which I understand is embellished.”

“No furniture broke,” Goran said.

“Pity. Every legend wants one broken piece of furniture.” She tapped the rim of her cup. She did that before a move. I knew her moves like my steam knew mine. “Let’s do this quickly, then, before the tea stews. My daughter’s familiar dosed you with a locked blend, in public. Old Tom witnessed.” She slanted Old Tom a look, and he backed away, his grin fading.

“Yes,” Goran said.

“And it burned off you in three seconds, they say.”

“About that.”

“And afterward. When it had burned off.” She looked up over the rim of her cup. “What did you do?”

“Kept Rain pinned to the wall a few heartbeats too long,” he said. “I left before I did worse. Repaired her door before dawn. Even added more wood to her pile out back. Told her the action came from the tea, and the rest was already true.”

The shop went quiet. Mistral stopped touching things and tilted his head their way.

“‘The rest was already true,’” my mother said softly. “How long do you mean when you say ‘the rest,’ Goran Brack?”

“Two years.”

“Two years of what, precisely? I want to hear it out loud.”

He laid it out for her, from the greens and the plums and the mended things and the chamomile. When he got to the stones, my mother put her cup down and got up. She walked to the counter and picked up the bowl.

She stood with it a long while, her back to us.

“Rain,” she said. “Fetch the blue tin. Top shelf of my cupboard. The one marked Isador’s Receipts, which has never once held a receipt.”

I fetched it. Inside, wrapped in a square of linen older than me, I found a river stone. Smooth, gray, a vein of white through it like a lightning strike. It could’ve come out of the bowl on the counter, but I suspected it had been in that tin since before I could reach the shelf.