Chapter 18
Eighteen
Morning made a show of itself—fog lifting off the river like a shrug, gulls heckling the rooftops, Mistwood Hills blinking awake one creaking shutter at a time.
Lanterns were strung like pearls along the street; vendors were elbow-deep in cinnamon and gossip; children in antler headbands rehearsed Samhain lines at full volume—“FROM THE SHADOWS, WE—no, Milo, louder”—while parents pretended this wasn’t their personal nightmare.
Everywhere Maude looked: ribbons, carved gourds, paper bats, and the kind of cheery industry that should’ve made her want to hex a scarecrow on principle. Instead, her mouth twitched like it hadn’t gotten the memo.
She pushed through the bustle, letting the tide of festivity carry her down the lane until the familiar crooked sign of the Elixir Emporium came into view. There, perched primly on the little table by her door, sat a neat bundle—waiting for her with the air of something far too pleased with itself.
Brown paper. Twine. Steam curling out of the seams. Beside it, a lidded tin that smelled like caramelized promise, a small star carved into the metal lid.
Maude did not look across the street.
She absolutely did not clock the lack of smoke ghosting out of Sugar High’s chimney, or the way the bakery windows were still dim, as if their sunny tyrant had not yet begun his day-long assault on teeth.
She bent, eyeing the parcel as if it might sprout fangs, and pinched the twine with two fingers and maximum suspicion.
“I don’t want you,” she told the parcel.
Then her stomach groaned like a fiddle being strangled.
She cracked the lid of the tin. Coffee steam hit her in the face: smoky roast and clove, orange peel, a whisper of cardamom.
The paper parcel yielded two shapes, unmistakably Wesley: one sweet, one savory.
The savory was a hand pie glazed with rosemary-honey, the crimped edges browned perfectly, the scent of charred mushroom and leek sneaking out.
The sweet was a pear tartlet under a glossy vanilla-bean lacquer, its crust so flaky her fingers picked up confetti.
There was no note. Just a small line inked on the parcel: Eat me.
Infuriating. Thoughtful. Infuriating.
Maude considered marching the lot straight back to his bakery and informing him she did not need his fussing, thanks; she was perfectly capable of starving herself like a responsible adult. Instead, she opened her door, shouldered in, and carried it to her counter.
Inside, the shop’s runes hummed low—Bailey’s old wards approving of the fresh coffee like they were in on the joke. Shelves of amber jars watched from the walls; the cauldron sat cold on its ring; the list she’d inked last night waited on the worktable, four corners under paperweights.
Weftmark Looms: North Gate—BOUND (lucky her cottage sat beside it—handy geography for the most unhandy curse of her life).
River Quay—BOUND. South Gate—Tonight? East Gate—Samhain.
Beside it: another list, the one that lived behind her ribs.
Volunteers: names she didn’t want to ask and would, anyway. And underlined twice: Samhain.
She ate the hand pie standing up, pretending her knees hadn’t just sighed in relief.
The pear tartlet she set aside because she had self-control.
She poured coffee, took one scalding sip, and tried very hard not to think about last night: the almost-kiss, the way his fingers had pushed hair from her face, the way the world had narrowed to breath and river wind—
She set the mug down a little too hard, coffee sloshing over the rim.
He must regret it. She’d seen it before. Regret wasn’t apologies or explanations—it was normalcy, perfectly performed. And, saints, wasn’t she the expert at that game? Maude decided that was fine. Great. Perfect, actually.
Maude rolled her sleeves. The Lantern Ward would need more poultices before noon, and if she kept her hands busy she could pretend her heartbeat wasn’t still echoing against her molars.
By midmorning she had three trays cooling: greenglass paste for burns, iron-spine salve for sprains, fever-break balm steeped with willow and moonleaf.
She decanted into jars, wrote labels and sealed each with wax and a thumbprint.
She worked the way she always had: methodically, sparingly, in a rhythm old enough to quiet ugly thoughts.
Outside, the town kept decorating itself like a very determined gallows.
When the sun stood high, the bell chimed.
Maude blinked at the sound, frowning. No scrape.
Her door usually dragged across the warped boards like an old man hacking up phlegm.
She hadn’t heard it this morning either.
When did that happen? She’d been too tangled up in Wesley’s care package to notice the absence.
The thought crawled in anyway: had he fixed it?
Absurd. Completely absurd. She shook her head, but then remembered the way he’d stared at the frame that last day their shops had been stuck together, like the hinge had personally insulted him.
Before she could chase the idea further, Selene breezed in with a wicker basket hooked over her arm and her hair in a braided crown. Her coat swung just a little too dramatically. She looked like a selkie princess on her way to steal the crown jewels—and probably succeed.
“What is this?” Maude asked.
“Lunch with my friend,” Selene said, innocent as sin, already setting the basket on the counter.
“You don’t have other friends?”
“Rude.” Selene produced covered bowls and two spoons out of nowhere, as if she’d stashed the tableware up her sleeves. “Pumpkin-ginger stew from the wharf’s cauldron kitchen. And these are sea-herb crisps from my people; try not to be a cultural disaster.”
Maude eyed the stew. The steam carried nutmeg, pepper, roasted squash. Her stomach released the trumpet fanfare of betrayal. She sniffed. “Fine. But only because bribery is my love language.”
They ate at the worktable. Selene kicked her boot against Maude’s under the bench, smiling at nothing in particular. Outside, a troupe of children marched by, their papier maché skull masks askew, a parent trailing them with costumes under one arm and a look of quiet despair.
“How’s the Lantern Ward?” Maude asked, reaching for a crisp like she hadn’t been trained to refuse help from birth.
“Chaotic,” Selene said cheerfully. “Two festival-related sprains, one toddler who tried to swallow a torch charm, Mrs. Kettle came in because her cat keeps coughing up fortunes instead of fur, and she swears it’s rigged because they’re never good ones.”
Maude snorted into her spoon. “Tell her to stop reading them. Problem solved.”
Selene’s mouth twitched, but her eyes were watchful. “You look less corpse-adjacent today.”
“I hate that.”
Selene smiled but didn’t push. That was one of the reasons Maude loved her.
They finished the stew; Selene slid two folded invoices toward her: one for hospital stock, one for the free stock Maude insisted didn’t exist. Maude signed both with a flick and nudged a crate of poultices across the floor with her heel.
“You’re giving us the greenglass for free again,” Selene said softly.
“Accounting error,” Maude said.
“Right.” Selene shrugged into her coat, lifted the crate with ease, and paused at the door. “You deserve it, you know.”
Maude narrowed her eyes. Selene tipped her chin toward the Sugar High Bakery box—note still glaring up with its smug little Eat me, the pear tartlet she’d set aside sitting like evidence.
Shit. She’d forgotten about that.
Maude rolled her shoulders back, spine stiffening. “That’s nothing.”
“You ate contraband hand pies from the enemy.”
“I confiscated them.”
Selene’s grin spread, sharp as a secret. “See you tonight?”
“Maybe,” Maude lied.
When Selene left, the afternoon thinned into its usual slow stretch.
She got some customers: Mrs. Haddingham stumped in, took her daily sprig of thyme with the gravity of a blood oath, and left without a word.
Two teenagers in cloak-hair and terrible eyeliner came for “something that makes your eyes black,” and left with charcoal salve and a lecture on avoiding organ failure.
A young mother asked for a sleeping charm “for the baby, obviously,” with haunted raccoon eyes that begged for a dose for herself; Maude tucked a quiet-breath sachet in the bag for free and pretended she hadn’t.
Then the novelty crowd: a pair of sisters, hair braided with ribbons, a box of Wesley’s sugar moons balanced between them like treasure.
“We heard you can make them…sing?” one ventured.
“Briefly,” Maude said.
She laid a thread of runes across the pastries and the crescents hummed a four-note lullaby sweet enough to calm a banshee. They clasped hands like she’d parted the clouds. When they left, the shop felt the tiniest bit warmer. She did not smile. (She did.)
By early evening, Maude had cleared the counter, relabeled three jars, and restocked cough elixirs. She flipped the sign to Closed and was reaching for her coat when the bell chimed again and Oliver Hale swept in like a wealthy storm, carrying a picnic.
The basket was ridiculous: braided willow, embroidered cloth, enough food for a rehearsal dinner. He dumped it on the counter. “Supper,” he sang.
“You’ve mistaken me for someone who’s fun.”
“Never.” He arched a brow, caught sight of the pear tartlet she had totally not been saving, and smirked. “Oh, good, dessert.”
Maude stared at the basket, then at him, then back at it. The math did itself. “Wesley told you.”
He had the grace to look sheepish for half a second, then decided against it. “He might have mentioned that you needed extra help. I might have mentioned to Selene that he mentioned it. Do not bite the courier’s head off; it’s very pretty.”
“I don’t need people looking after me,” she said, folding her arms so tightly a rib complained.
“Right,” Oli said brightly, “you’re the only one allowed to look after people.”
She bristled. “I—”
He ticked items off on elegant fingers. “Let’s consult the record: Maude Harrow has quietly financed potion stock for the Lantern Ward for months.
She repaired Old Rook’s roof when it failed in a rainstorm at two a.m., because he was too proud to ask and too frail to fix it.
She spent three nights on the stables floor weaning Pickles off a fever tonic, because the healers gave up and you did not.
She slipped that scholar from the bookshop a tea so he’d stop dreaming himself mad.
She stabilized a cursed street with her own hands and no sleep, and would absolutely do it again rather than ask for help. ”
He lifted his gaze. The teasing softened; the care didn’t. “You like to act like you’re heartless, Maude, but you’re the one who keeps giving pieces of your heart away.”
She stared at him. The shop, the lanterns outside, the hum of the runes—everything sharpened and blurred at once. She sat down hard on the stool and pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Saints, Oli. What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to do whatever you’re going to do,” he said matter-of-factly, “because you’re you. But you’ll do the right thing. You always do.” He let the beat sit, then added lightly, “And for the record, I vote we appoint Wesley as head of Maude Maintenance.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Democracy at work,” Oli said, unbothered. He began unpacking the basket: roasted root vegetables shimmering with herb oil; a slab of butter bread; a wedge of sharp cheese; small hand pies that were definitely stolen from Wesley’s production like a raccoon raid in human form.
He set a fork in front of her like a challenge. “Magistrates’ patrol doubled today,” Oli said, slicing the cheese. “They’re sniffing for infractions like boarhounds. Lydia told one of them your sign was ‘too pointed.’”
Maude snorted and pulled the butter bread apart. The heat steamed between her fingers. “How’s your scheming?”
“Thriving. The Seat Gambit proceeds. I have a majority of endorsements, one bitter rival, and a wardrobe that could run for office without me. I just need to not commit homicide in front of witnesses for three days.”
She swallowed a smile. “Manageable.”
“Borderline.” He studied her face for a long second. “You look like you slept a little.”
“Four hours,” she said. “Record-breaking.”
“Then you’ll do it again tonight after you set the South Gate.”
She didn’t ask how he knew. He knew because he paid attention; it was his entire job, and sometimes his gift. She nodded once.
He packed half the food back into the basket, thrust it at her, and kissed her forehead in that infuriating big-brother way he’d invented the day they met. “Eat. And if you won’t appoint Wesley to Maude Maintenance, I’ll unionize him and do it, anyway.”
“I’ll salt your bones.”
“Hot,” he said, and sauntered out, whistling.
When the door shut, the shop’s quiet came back like a tide.
Maude leaned her elbows on the counter and let her head drop to her hands for one long breath.
Grim hopped onto the ledger and curled his warm, heavy body across her lists like a furry paperweight.
His ears still held a faint pink glow at the tips—a reminder that containment wasn’t a cure, that time was a thread she was burning on both ends.
Outside, laughter rose, and the brass trio slid deliciously off-key. A string of lanterns lit all at once, one-two-three, like a held breath exhaled.
She moved. Locked the till. Checked the wards. Blew out the front lamps one by one until the shop was an amber sigh. Then she shouldered the basket Oli had forced on her and tucked the pear tartlet into the top of it like a tiny bribe she’d earned.
On the worktable, the Weftmark list waited. South Gate—Tonight? East Gate—Samhain. Under it, in her own tight script, a note: Ask for help (ugh).
She stared at it until the letters swam, then drew her coat tight, stepped into the evening, and locked the door. The street glowed gold and violet, lanterns swaying, shadows long. Somewhere, a child shouted a line about ghosts with triumphant terror. Somewhere else, a magistrate sniffed at a sign.
Maude stood in the doorway for a heartbeat and listened to the town dress itself—ornamented and doomed in the same breath. Then she tucked the basket under her arm and stepped into the warm, strange night to save it.