"You come here every year. You buy one bell every year — always from my stall, never anyone else's. You watch my forge like you're waiting for it to explode. Your magic reacts to sound," I say, letting each fact fall separately, like stones dropped one by one into still water. "You expect me not to ask questions?"
"I expect you to ask many questions," he says, and there is something almost gentle in it. Almost rueful.
"Then answer them," I say.
"I cannot," he replies, with a kind of sorrow that sounds well-worn, like grief that has learned to sit still.
The simplicity of the words steals the argument clean from my mouth.
I study his face, searching for mockery and maybe evasion, for the small tells of a man arranging a comfortable lie.
I find none of it.
Only restraint. Tight as pulled wire, and just as close to snapping.
My arms drop slowly to my sides. Something in my chest does the same.
"That is inconvenient," I mutter, to the lake, to the unhelpful morning.
The corner of his lips shifts. Not quite a smile. Close enough to count, and somehow worse for being so small.
We stand there until the wind changes direction and the mist begins to thin and the festival noise from the square grows louder and more insistent. The world reminds me it exists.
Then I remember myself.
I step back first. It feels like a concession I haven't agreed to make.
"Enjoy the festival," I say briskly, tucking everything behind the word like folding laundry.
I leave before he can answer, and I tell myself that was the sensible choice.
Sylvi finds me before sunset.
She appears from behind a stack of lantern crates with the timing of a hunting cat and the grin of a criminal mastermind.
"You were staring."
"I was not," I shoot back, not breaking stride.
"You were absolutely staring," she counters, falling into step beside me like she was invited.
"I was assessing a customer."
She chuckles, "You were assessing his cheekbones."
I shove past her toward the forge. She keeps pace without effort, which is its own kind of irritating.
I continue walking, faster.
Sylvi laughs loud enough to wake the lake.
"You like him," she announces, with the confidence of someone delivering a verdict.
"I do not," I mutter, eyes forward.
"You absolutely do." She pushes on.
I'm slowly getting triggered by her persistence. "I absolutely do not."
