The quiet after the door shuts feels poisonous. I turn to Dralgor, arms folded, my robe pulled tight, and the fear inside me claws its way into words.
“I knew it,” I say. “I knew trusting you was a mistake.”
His face hardens, but not with anger. With something worse. Hurt.
“It isn’t my hand behind this.”
“No, it’s your signature from before you came here, isn’t it? That’s enough.” My voice shakes even as I fight to steady it. “For weeks, I’ve been holding this place together with nothing but stubbornness, and you come waltzing in, and suddenly it’s your ex-partner filing suits in your name.”
“Ex,” he growls, stepping closer. “He’s nothing to me.”
“Then why does it feel like everything he touches still traces back to you?” I demand. “Why does it feel like I’ve been a fool to let you near me, near this place, near my life?”
He goes silent. His jaw tightens, his fists clench, but he doesn’t fire back. That quiet, more than yelling, twists the knife in me.
I turn away, blinking hard. “I can’t do this right now. Not with him threatening everything.”
By noon, the whole town knows. That’s Silverpine for you: gossip travels faster than the wind, and bad news rides it like a hawk. I walk down to the square with my scarf pulled tight, but eyes still follow me, whispers trailing close behind.
Pippa flits down from the rafters of the cider stand, her wings sparkling with frost. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says, then catches herself. “No. Worse than a ghost. You’ve seen Thomas.”
I give her a look sharp enough to almost cut, but my voice comes out softer. “He filed a countersuit. Says he can take the lodge.”
Her little face scrunches, and then she straightens midair with all the pomp of a general on parade. “Well, he won’t. Because he may have claws, but you’ve got the town. And me.”
“Pippa—”
“No,” she interrupts, crossing her tiny arms. “I’ve lived here longer than either of you. I know when someone’s bluffing with ink and paper instead of heart. That man has no heart. But you do. And these people love you. They’ll rally.”
As if summoned, Mayor Thorne appears, scarf wrapped around his neck, his cane crunching into the snow. He looks older than usual, lines deeper, but his eyes burn steady. “Pippa’s right. We’ll not let a stranger carve up Silverpine with legal tricks.” He looks at me, his voice gentler. “You’ve given this town a reason to believe the lodge still matters, Clara. That’s not nothing. That’s more than Thomas will ever understand.”
The words should comfort me, but they only make the fear sharpen, because belief doesn’t hold up in court. Paper does.
That night, I sit at the kitchen table with Dee, Pippa perched on the sugar bowl, and Mayor Thorne sipping tea like it’s whiskey. We argue, we plan, we try to make sense of laws none of us fully understand.
“It’s a stall tactic,” Dee says, tapping her pencil against her clipboard like it’s a weapon. “He doesn’t have the standing, not if Dralgor truly cut ties. But he wants to scare you, scare the town, fracture whatever trust you’ve built.”
Pippa slams her tiny fist on the sugar bowl. “Then we won’t let him. We’ll make it louder, bigger. Festival’s still on, right? Then we use it. Lanterns, music, fire, all of it—every single person in this town will stand with you and show that this lodge belongs to Silverpine, not to him.”
Mayor Thorne nods slowly. “A public stand won’t end a suit, but it’ll send a message. Judges are human. They read the wind as much as the statutes.”
Their faith steadies me, but only a little. Because I know tomorrow I’ll still wake to the fear that a scrap of paper in some courtroom could undo every bit of work I’ve put into saving this place.
When Dralgor comes back that evening, carrying wood for the fire, I don’t know how to look at him. He sets the logs down, brushes snow from his shoulders, and waits. Always waiting now, always giving me the choice.
“Say it’s not true,” I whisper finally, my hands trembling against the mug I’m holding. “Say he can’t do this.”
He stands there, silent, eyes fixed on me with that unshakable calm, and then he says, “He can try. But he will not win.”
I want to believe him. I want it so badly it hurts. But the crack Thomas opened this morning still bleeds fear through me, and I don’t know if trust can hold against ink and law.
The stars return that night, sharper, colder, brighter than they’ve been in weeks. I sit on the porch alone, watching my breath fog into the dark. Somewhere behind me, I hear the floorboards creak as Dralgor steps closer, but he doesn’t join me. He lets me have the night, the fear, the choice.
And maybe that’s the only thing keeping me from shattering completely—the fact that he’s still here, steady as the mountains, while the rest of the world shifts like snow waiting to slide.
CHAPTER 24
DRALGOR
