A pause. He's deciding how much to give me, weighing my authority against his loyalty to her. I watch him reach his conclusion.
"She switched routes," he says. "Wouldn't tell me which ones."
I turn back to face him. "Who does she deliver to?"
"She doesn't—" He stops. Starts again. "She doesn't tell me his name. A broad man. Scarred arms." His eyes drop to the floor. "I told her it was stupid, but she always comes home.”
"Something didn't go fine last night."
He flinches, which I hadn't intended. He's fourteen and trying very hard not to look as frightened as he is. I adjust my tone.
"I'm going to find her," I say. "To bring her back." Our eyes meet. "You have my word."
Finn looks at me longer than necessary with the measuring eyes Edria gave him. Whatever he finds, it's enough.
"The creek path runs north from the mill wheel," he says. "She usually cuts west at the old ash tree."
I'm already moving.
Cyran falls into step behind me without being told. Outside, the morning is pale and still, the frost on the lane catching the early light. I move fast toward the mill, running through what I know — the disturbed ground, the blood on the root, the secondary path that only gets used when someone is trying to avoid being seen.
Either way, she walked into something last night, and she didn't walk back out.
15
EDRIA
The new men are wrong from the moment I see them.
Velis usually brings two, sometimes three — rough men, but familiar. These four are different. Cleaner boots. Eyes that move in patterns rather than reactions. They stand apart from Velis's group with the quiet confidence of people who don't need to posture because they've already decided how the night ends.
I stop six feet back from the exchange point.
"Who are they?" I ask Velis.
"The buyers I mentioned." He gestures vaguely. "They wanted to meet you."
"You didn't tell me they'd be here."
"I'm telling you now." He keeps his voice easy, but his shoulders are set in a way I've seen before — a man who has already made a deal he's not sure he can keep. "They want to discuss terms directly."
The tallest of the four steps forward. He has a pale scar running from his left ear to his jaw and the flat eyes of someone who stopped finding things surprising a long time ago.
"Your work is exceptional," he says. "We want more of it."
"I'm already at capacity." I keep my eyes moving between him and the other three. "Whatever Velis told you I could deliver, that's the ceiling."
"We're prepared to pay well above what he offers."
"It's not about the money." I shift my weight back slightly. "I'm one person. I have a legal forge to run alongside the rest of it. I can't fill a larger order without drawing the kind of attention that shuts down everyone in this forest."
The scarred man looks at Velis. Something passes between them that I don't like.
"We're not asking," he says, turning back to me.
I go still. "Then we don't have anything to discuss."
"Your family runs the forge." His voice stays pleasant. "Your father. Your younger brother. He has a health condition, I understand." He cocks his head. "Supply our order or we make the forge unworkable. Permanently."
