Epilogue
Six months later
Mistress Kirim, Mistress Kirim!” A squeaky voice came from somewhere near my elbow. I sighed deeply into the hydrangea bush that I was trimming and gathered my patience before turning slowly.
“Alwin, I’ve told you a dozen times. It’s Maerryl. Just Maerryl. Or Mae. Or M. Or even ‘hey you.’ But please, enough with the ‘Mistress Kirim.’ It makes me feel like an old fuddy-duddy.” I scowled for good measure.
The tiny mop-haired boy just blinked back at me, then broke into a smile. “Okay, Mist—I mean, Maerryl. Anyway, Susu keeps kicking dirt into the hole I’m digging! Make her stop!”
I glanced over at where his little accusatory finger pointed, to find a nonchalant-looking Susu peacefully watering some nearby plants. With the toes of her boots covered in dirt.
“Susu, if you’re messing with Alwin, please stop. I beg of you. We only have—wait, why are you digging a hole in the garden?” I swung back to Alwin, arms crossed, ignoring the other child now sticking her tongue out at me.
He smiled again, gap-tooth showing. “For the bulbs!”
“Bulbs? We aren’t planting dahlia bulbs until next week,” I said.
“But I’m ready to plant mine now,” he said proudly. “Because I’ve already got the holes ready.”
Goddess help me. “Wait—hole or holes? Alwin? How many holes have you dug?!”
The boy skipped off. I sighed and pinched the spot between my eyes. This is what I get for letting Dove convince me to accept seven-year-olds into my horticulture class.
“Right. I think it’s time for tea,” I said, pocketing the clippers and then brushing off my overalls. A cheer went up around me in the garden. “Picnic style again today?” Another cheer of consensus.
“Alright, Gilly, you’re in charge till I get back,” I said, nodding to the most responsible youth of the bunch, a fourteen-year-old who I knew could keep chaos from breaking out for at least twenty minutes.
He nodded back, getting up from the flower bed he’d been weeding and beginning to gather tools and supplies from where everything had been strewn about over the past hour.
Other kids joined in, chattering cheerfully among themselves.
“And Alwin, enough holes,” I said. “You go pick a good shady spot for all of us to have tea.” He raced off toward the forest line.
After a quick back stretch to loosen up my muscles—gardening proved to be tough work, and I was no spring chicken—I sloped up the path and across the patio, now half-filled with the very long table and benches we used for outdoor meals when the weather allowed, and made my way into the manor.
Here, the old grand ballroom had been transformed.
We’d removed the heavy velvet curtains from the tall windows, and everything had been dusted and cleaned, letting bright afternoon light fill the spacious hall that now held half a dozen round oak tables in the middle.
A collection of musical instruments lay waiting in one corner; this space had excellent acoustics for the jam band that formed a few weeks ago.
A long trestle table ran along one wall of the room, where meals were served buffet-style by Choia and Hanc.
Now, they just held the usual juice, water, and tea that Choia liked to keep on hand for the children during the day.
Along with the perennial basket of baked goods and fruit, of course.
Breakfast and lunch tended to be busy, chaotic affairs, with everyone in the orphanage on different schedules, so she felt it important that there was always something on hand for folks to grab.
But supper, we all ate together. Young, old, and in between.
Children and teachers, staff and volunteers from the village.
Every evening at seven o’clock, we sat down for a shared meal.
Right now, though, a few of the round tables held some of the middlings—what kids about seven to thirteen had come to be called colloquially here—riveted by Orinno’s history lesson as he scrawled a huge and messy map of Kurriel on the blackboard.
Littlelies were, of course, anyone six and under, while the older youths had at some point been dubbed, quite comically, elders.
Orinno joined us as a regular volunteer a couple months ago, at Dove’s and my begging, and he’d been an integral part of getting the orphanage set up in the first months.
And once we opened our doors in late winter, it became increasingly clear that all of the children who joined us from the priory and the village felt much better knowing that he’d be around.
It was a big change, after all, going to another new home again.
And though all the adults involved knew it was the right decision, and the children were adjusting here surprisingly well, we wanted to do everything we could to make this feel like a home.
“I hope you’re all behaving for Cleric Orinno,” I called, sending a stern scowl toward the small faces that whipped around at my voice.
“Yeeessss, Maeeee,” they sang disjointedly. One kid who I had a bit of an ongoing feud with just picked his nose, rubbing it off under his seat. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he gave me the finger.
“You’re all very lucky to have Orinno teaching history, healing, and meditation here. If it fell to me, you’d have your realms all mixed up and your toes falling off from gangrene.” The class erupted in giggles.
I carried on through the dining hall, exchanging a wave and tired smile with Orinno, as I admired how much more full of life the manor felt now.
Clean and warm, with the new heaters we’d installed in every room keeping the light chill of early spring away.
Pillows on the seat of every chair, and flowers bursting from pitchers on each table.
Three of Dove’s large, vibrant paintings hung on the walls, adding even more color to the room.
When the Takers Guild had stolen everything on the night of the heist all those long months ago, Dove had been devastated. And I, with her. All of her work, every beautiful piece that had hung on the walls of her studio—gone.
And then one morning, a few weeks later, she’d opened the front door to find a large butcher paper–wrapped canvas on the doorstep. Inside, one of her paintings. A favorite that I affectionately thought of as Big Blue. Pinned to it was a note that just read:
Thought you’d want this. Have sold the rest of your work.
Take the profit for the young ’uns.
—Z
PS—Tell anyone, and I’ll raze your precious gardens to the ground, M.
Tucked behind the painting’s bulk we found a little wooden chest, filled to the brim with gold and silver coin.
Once we’d finished screeching and counting up all of the money, Dove and I realized we could expedite our plans for the orphanage.
At that point, things were finally starting to calm down.
We’d just finished settling her parents into a pleasant but humble three-bedroom flat nearish enough to their ideal neighborhood, and they seemed to be keeping busy with their social calendar and plans to open a small gallery on the empty ground floor.
The Wistrallo’s butler, Frandin, had insisted on joining them permanently—not having, as he put it, “a disposition inclined to tolerate sticky youths”—and along with Mother’s maid, they were well set up for happiness now. At least for a time.
And while things between Dove and her parents weren’t exactly pleasant yet, they were cordial.
They exchanged letters occasionally. Dove had gone into Talon to visit once or twice.
They had their lives, and we were free to have ours.
For now, it was the best we could hope for, though I knew she missed them sometimes.
In any case, with the coin left from the sale, along with this chest from Zephyra, it was then full steam ahead on our orphanage plans.
Everything, somehow, had come together. Not perfectly—not by a long shot—but just the way it should be.
I had everyone and everything I needed now.
Dove. Our home. Most importantly, my brother, safe and healthy.
Even now, it still felt miraculous every time I saw Balfie around the orphanage. Alive—living, breathing. Driving me mad just like he used to, before, but now I adored every minute with the little troublemaker. Every fucking minute.
All these months later, we’d successfully been dispensing the cure out to everyone we could find suffering from dwarfdrop across Kurriel.
Dove transformed one crystal a day, when she felt magically and physically able to, and the priory used their network to get them to those in need.
Bastion had already taken two shipments with him across the sea at the end of his merchant route back home, getting it out to folks as surreptitiously as possible.
There were rumblings that the Orlavian government was catching on, and a couple crime bosses were starting to sniff around, but Bastion was slipperier than an ottereel. He’d be fine. Probably.
Now, I strolled down the side hall toward the kitchens—formerly known as the servants’ hall—reminiscing about all the good we’d done in just half a year.
So many people cured, and so many children safe and happy in these halls.
Healing together. Balfie, just this morning, running circles around me with a group of his fellow middlings until I got dizzy.
Gasping with laughter, more joy than I’d seen in his face in years.
My chest blazed with warmth at the memory.
I’d nearly reached the kitchens entrance when a hand shot out of a nearby storeroom cupboard and pulled me in. The door snicked shut, locking, and darkness spilled around me.
“Hiding from the twins again?” I said, bemused.
A mage orb glowed on softly at a flick of Dove’s hand. She groaned, plunging her face into the crook of my neck. My runic tattoo was still there, but faded, nothing but a reminder.