Elmrow Lanein the late afternoon was a narrow channel of warm brick and crooked chimneys, the houses leaning companionably toward one another as though exchanging confidences across the cobbles. It was a quieter part of Bloomhaven, well removed from the broad avenues where enchanted carriages rolled past flowering lampposts and arranged cascades spilled from every archway—and further still from the grand fae homes beyond, where the manor houses sat behind gates of wrought iron and the gardens alone were larger than anything on Elmrow Lane.
Here the flowers grew where they pleased, in window boxes and wall cracks and along the Dunbars’ low garden wall, where the mortar had given up entirely and something pink had taken its place.
The families who lived here were a mixture of human and fae, though the fae of Elmrow Lane were not the sort who attended balls at Solstice Hall or rode in enchanted carriages. They came from lines that had long since stopped manifesting any particular magical gift. They could still perform the basics that all fae were born to, but beyond that, the magic in their blood had thinned to something quiet and unexceptional.
They were not, in truth, so very different from their human neighbors, who could draw magic from lumyrite and use it for similar small enchantments. But they were, all of them—human and fae alike—worlds away fromthe noble families who held titles and estates and the power to shape the social order around themselves. Families like the Rowanwoods.
Lucie stepped off the cobbles and onto the short path that led to the house she’d lived in her entire life. The walk from The Honeycomb was not a long one, but she had taken it at rather more speed than usual this afternoon, as though putting distance between herself and a certain kitchen might also put distance between herself and a certain person.
It had not worked. Kazrian Rowanwood had accompanied her the entire way, which was a remarkable feat for someone who was not, in fact, present.
She could still hear his voice. The low, earnest way he had saidcivil acquaintancesandbegin again. And perhaps they could. She had agreed, after all. She had smiled and saidthis need not be awkwardand then, in almost the same breath, she’d managed to say the nameHenryaloud for the second time, which instantly made everything far more awkward than it had been moments before.
She still wanted to press both hands over her eyes when she thought of it.There is Henry.As though he were a task on the list of items that kept her busy. Recipes, displays, commissions—and Henry!
She did not care to speculate on what Kazrian—who had most certainly not believed her stammered ‘there is … many’ correction—was now making of that particular slip.
She turned the front door’s handle and pushed. The smell reached her before the door was fully open. Laundry soap, the clean, sharp scent of linens that had been scrubbed and wrung and hung to dry earlier in the day. The Fields family had no servants in any formal sense of the word—they could not afford permanent household staff, though Mrs Fields’ business did well enough, by the standards of a human household in Bloomhaven.
But they had Eliza, a girl who lived further along the lane who came in several days a week to do some of the scrubbing and washing, and Pip, their brownie. Though calling Piptheirsfelt rather too possessive for the nature of the arrangement.
The shy little creature tidied the house in the small hours, after the family had gone to bed, and was gone before any of them woke. A creak on the stairs at three in the morning, the soft chime of a dish being set into its place in the cabinet, and then silence. In prosperous fae households, brownies were practically staff—visible, acknowledged, sometimes evenuniformed. In the Fields home, Pippin was more like a creature who had chosen them, and the relationship was quieter and more mutual. Lucie or her mother set out his preferred treat of spiced shortbread with candied ginger every evening, and by the morning the plate had been cleaned and put away, and the house was always neater than anyone in the family could take credit for.
She removed her shawl and set her bag on the narrow bench beneath the row of coat pegs as the second scent reached her—something savory and delicious. Through the wall on the far side of the house came the low, steady hum of her father’s workshop. The sound of the lathe, perhaps, or the grinding wheel, both of which were powered by a small core of lumyrite their family could only just afford to replace when the magic had been depleted.
Lucie crossed the parlor and pushed through the door into the kitchen, where her mother stood at the range, stirring the pot that was the source of the rich, savory smell.
“Hello, my sweet,” Mrs Fields said, without turning.
“Hello, Mother.”
Lucie went to her mother’s side, breathing in the warmth of the kitchen, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. As she drew back, her gaze dropped to her mother’s hands on the spoon. The skin along the sides of her fingers was red and inflamed, the telltale mark of certain rare enchanted fabrics. They were beautiful to look at, to be sure, and merely touching them had no noticeable effect on human skin, but a full day of handling left an angry, stinging irritation.
Lucie crossed to the dresser, opened the second drawer, and took out the small pot of salve that lived there. She set it on the counter beside her mother.
Mrs Fields glanced at it. “Ah. Thank you, love. I kept meaning to fetch that.”
“I am going to look in on Father,” Lucie added as the humming ceased and a scraping sound began. She headed through the kitchen to the back passage, where a narrow door opened onto the workshop that occupied the rear of the house. She leaned against the doorframe and looked in.
Her father was bent over his workbench, a length of wood clamped before him, one hand resting lightly on the surface while the other guidedthe plane along the grain. The air smelled of sawdust, that warm, sweet, woody smell she would forever and always associate with him. Tools hung along the wall behind him in the arrangement he had maintained for as long as Lucie could remember. A place for everything, everything in its place.
He knew she was there. She could tell from the brief sideways flick of his eyes. But he did not stop mid-pass. He did not interrupt a cut any more than Lucie interrupted a sugar spiral mid-drizzle. She watched him draw the plane the length of the board in one long, fluid stroke, sending a curl of pale wood spiraling to the floor, and only then did he straighten and turn.
His posture was not bad today. Some days the hours at the bench settled into his shoulders and lower back and made him stiff, made him move like a man ten years older than he was. Today he stood easily, rolled one shoulder once, and smiled at her.
“Evening, daughter dear.”
“Evening, Father.”
He set the plane down and brushed shavings from his forearms. “How was your day?”
“Quiet,” she said. “Nothing remarkable.” The lie came out so smoothly it barely registered as one. “What are you working on?”
“Display case for the Turners’ shop.” He ran his thumb along the edge of the board, checking the smoothness. “Nearly there for today. Another ten minutes, perhaps.”
Lucie returned to the kitchen, where her mother was lifting a round loaf from the bread box and setting it onto the cutting board. The salve, she noticed, had been opened. Its lid sat beside it, and there was a faint sheen on her mother’s knuckles.
“Tell me about your day, then,” Mrs Fields said.
