"Progress," Corrine says behind me.
I turn. She stands at the edge of the market with a basket over one arm, curls escaping her braid, soil on her sleeve, and the expression she wears when she has already mocked me privately.
"You were thinking something dramatic," she says.
"I was thinking the goat lacks discipline."
"That is dramatic for a goat."
She comes to my side. People see it. Some still pause. Some still remember what I was called before this valley became a place with mixed patrols and children who know my name without flinching. I do not resent them for the hesitation. The past is stone under the house. You build above it carefully or the whole thing cracks.
Corrine glances at the cabbage, then at me. "Fair ruling."
"High praise."
"For domestic command? Towering."
"I was looking for you," she says.
"That sounds dangerous."
"It is practical, which you find worse."
She takes a folded sheet from her basket and passes it to me. I know before I open it that she has drawn something. Corrine only folds parchment this sharply when she intends to change my life and pretend it is logistics.
The plan is rough, but clear. Our house on the ridge. The clinic below it. The empty grazing ground between. New walls. Six sleeping rooms. A wash area. Medicine storage. A wider hearth. Two exits, because Corrine would rather insult a king than design a room with one way out.
"A refuge," I say.
"For families coming through with nowhere safe yet." She watches the plan instead of my face. "Not a temporary corner in the clinic. A real place. Human, dark elf, mixed, anyone whoneeds it. Isolde can manage the medical side. I can organize food and routes. You can frighten builders into honesty."
"I do not frighten builders."
"The mason still apologizes to the lintel when he sees you."
"He was using the wrong stone."
"You stared at him until he changed his mind."
"He improved under pressure."
I return to the drawing, because if I keep looking at her, I will say yes too quickly.
A refuge attached to the home I built for us. Not hidden. Not temporary. A place people may arrive broken and still be expected to stay long enough to be more than what happened to them. Once, I would have called that a weakness. Now I see the drainage problem first.
"The ground floods on the east side," I say.
"I know. I marked channels."
"The back exit should open behind the ash line, not onto the road."
"I know."
"The riverbed stone cracks in frost. We use north quarry stone."
"I know that too."
I look at her. "Then why are you asking me?"
