A grunt. Not even an annoyed grunt.
Saskia blinks at him. She looks at Brynna. Brynna looks at Mirelle, who then looks up at Ysolde. An entire conversation passes between the four of them.
"He's been like this all week," Mirelle stage-whispers to me, hopping up to sit on my cutting table, which I have given up hope of ever stopping her from doing. "Won't fight back. It's weird.” She frowns. “Yesterday I called him an overgrown cave troll at breakfast and he just passed me the honey."
"Maybe he's ill," Ysolde says.
"Maybe he's dying," Saskia says, with too much of a smile on her face.
"You know, I can hear you, right?" Torgan folds up the newspaper he is not reading.
"Then fight back," Saskia says. "It's no fun if you don't?—"
The bell over my door doesn't jingle so much as it clangs, and a man walks into my shop like he owns it.
Which, it turns out, is nearly the claim he's here to make.
He's human, well-fed and dressed too warmly for the summer season. He doesn't remove his hat, and he doesn't look at the bride on the dais — actually, he doesn't look at any of the four orc noblewomen here.
He looks at me, checks something on a folded paper in his gloved hands, and says, "Lisette Sunfell?"
I clear my throat, trying to gather my thoughts enough to confront this man. "This is a private fitting," I say. "The shop's closed until?—"
"Won't take a minute." He steps forward. "I represent the new holder of this property's obligations. There's the matter of arrears — three months' back rent owed to the new owner.”
“New owner?” I ask, alarmed. “But?—"
“I'm instructed to collect, or to discuss terms of vacancy." He produces a second paper with a little flourish. "You'll want to review the figures."
The shop goes very quiet.
And I — I simply freeze.
It's absurd.
I know it's absurd even while it's happening. There is no new owner. There are no arrears. There is no possibility of arrears.
But there's a paper, and a man in a fine purple coat holding it out for me, and some old cellar-level part of me — the part that grew up counting coppers at this same cutting table with Grammy, the part of me that still counts coppers around this same cutting table as an adult with the threat of tariffs hanging over my head — that believes every word and figure I see on the paper.
My mouth opens and nothing comes out.
Immediately, the world turns watery, and it takes me too long to realize that tears are threatening to fall.
And then Torgan stands. The collector finally looks away from the paper.
Torgan doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. He simply comes to stand beside me —not between me and the man, just beside me, close enough that this beady-eyed man’s gaze leaves the paper and travels up and up.
The man's smile dies.
And the three seconds that buys me is enough time to collect myself.
Or maybe it’s because I’ve found some strength from the orc lord beside me. I’m not sure, but whatever it is, I stop hearing the word vacancy and start actually looking at the paper in my hand — the seal is a smear of wax with no signet. The clerk’s handwriting is too tidy.
This is a forgery.
"There is no new owner," I hear myself say.
The man blinks. "Madam, the transfer?—"
