She gestures to the garden.
"Everything out here is like that. It's not a garden you own. It's a garden you're part of. It grew as part of my grandmother, and then it grew as part of me." A tear slips down her cheek. "It's not something you can move."
I look over the beds. I recognize some of the herbs from her trays. Others are completely unfamiliar. What would happen to all of this if Noemi had to leave?
"This is what the letter would take," I say.
"Exactly." She snaps a dead bloom off one of the trumpets. "The shop I could rebuild. The stock I could remake. This, though...there's no remaking it. And the worst of it, Lissy, is that whoever sent that letter wouldn't even want it. They don't know it's here. They'd pave it for a warehouse without ever learning what they killed." She looks back at me. "This is my family now."
I cross the path and hug her. She stands stiff for a moment. Noemi has never been a hugger. Then her arms come around me hard.
"We won't ever let that happen," I say into her shoulder.
Noemi shudders. "You can't promise that."
"Maybe not. But it would take a lot for me to break that promise."
She pulls back and laughs. Wet and short, but a laugh. "Look at you. Two weddings with those orcs and you've gone brave."
"It will be three weddings soon," I correct. "And it's the company I keep. Orcs, yes. But also the brave women of Starling Vale."
She walks me back to the gate. On the threshold, she stops me with a hand on my arm. Her face has gone thoughtful in the moon-trumpet light.
"Thank you, Lissy," she says with a hiccup. She squeezes my arm and lets go. "Thank you for walking me home. And for seeing this part of me."
"Of course, Noemi." I hug her again and leave.
I walk the two blocks back alone to my own dark windows. The display dress stands on its form, with the oak leaf and needle at the shoulder where I always put them. I stop at my door with the key in my hand.
Grammy owns this building. No one can sell it out from under me. Of all the shops on this street, I'm the safest, and I've spent weeks feeling hunted anyway. My friends, who aren't safe, spent those same weeks feeling hunted alone.
Never again.
Tomorrow, I start fighting back.
Tomorrow, I learn who is threatening Starling Vale.
Tomorrow, I write to Torgan and ask what he knows about Voss.
16
TORGAN
Lissy’s note reaches me at the Hall before breakfast.
Torgan—When you’re next in town, come by the shop. Before the next fitting, if you can. I need to ask you something, and it’s not about dresses.—L
I’m in my saddle within the hour, careful not to tell Saskia or Mirelle, who would insist on coming along to Lissy’s shop. Instead, I tell Harek it’s estate business. Harek looks at me and nods.
And says nothing else.
Lissy is waiting with the shop door unlocked and the sign still turned to closed. She sits in an armchair with a cup of tea in her hands, her expression distant. There are no pins in her apron. She’s here, waiting for me, even though she had no idea when I would arrive.
She knew I’d come right away.
On the cutting table, like evidence at a tribunal, sit two letters on cream paper and a small ivory card.
She looks up when the door jingles behind me. She smiles, but it isn’t entirely warm. It’s tight. Like she’s been fighting something.
