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She laughed until she had to sit down on the back step. And that is how, the next morning, the entire village came up my track at dawn in wagons to pay its debt off in carpentry. My quiet farm, which had held five living souls the day before, if you counted the sprite, held the loudest workday in the history of the east road.

The frame went up before noon. It would’ve gone up before ten if the twins could carry anything in a straight line.

“Tradition,” Struan called out over his shoulder. “It’s not a Brack delivery until it’s gone the wrong way once.”

“We’ll bring it round by the creek,” Nastru said. “Take the scenic route. The lumber likes to see the farm.”

Rufus arrived with a barrel and started serving drinks. Mrs. Honeycake set up a table to feed the work crew, and made good on her tavern vow.

“I see nothing wrong with that joint,” she announced, walking past, handing out cookies. “Beautiful, worm-free beams. I have no opinions.” Old Tom supervised from a chair, wrong about which wall the window went in. Melissant came out at midday, studied the frame, and left a book on the table, a hand-bound thing on the drying of herbs, older than the tavern.

And Zephyrine Cloudcall stood in the yard for half the morning, hat in her hands, until Rain went and got her.

“I could charm the roof,” Zeph said. “Waterproofing. It’s a small working. Very stable. I’ve done it a hundred times.” She wrung the hat. “You’d be within your rights to want me nowhere near this roof, or any roof for that matter. I’m aware the last sky I touched ended up in your bedroom.”

Rain took her by the shoulders. “Zephyrine. You hailed sprites on the village, drowned it in melting dogs and cats, and knocked my entire life three miles east, where it turned out I belong.” She turned her toward the new rafters. “Charm the roof. You’re the luckiest weather I’ve ever had.”

Zeph cried on the ladder as she cast the spell. At least it didn’t start raining sprites or cats and dogs.

The room took four days. Two counters. One at her height and one at mine, because her craft is hers, but a male can shell walnuts at his own height while his wife works. Cedar shelves to the ceiling on the north wall, her tins ready. Glass in two of the walls, all with sills wide enough for a cat, a jar, and a sprite, all three of which watched the construction and made comments through Rain.

We secured iron hooks in the rafters for the drying bundles. A stone floor, laid to keep it from cracking for years. A small stove for the brews that need their own fire. The moonbell went up in silver rows down the center of the ceiling, on a long iron rail I forged in my barn. Her first full harvest off the fence-line strip hung heads down and glowing. The ceiling turned silver by suppertime.

Turnip attended the roof-raising, careful not to slash anything with his horn. Asha arrived the last morning with a crown woven of late flowers and grasses. She walked up to the ton of fanged plow-beast and set it on his head around his horn. My beast stood in place while she did it and refused to take it off.

At dusk on the fourth day, the village rode home down the track, fed and owing nothing.

The farm went quiet, and it was just the two of us standing in the sawdust smell of a finished room, her tins on the shelves, her kettle on its stove, the moonbell overhead.

I’d hung the sign that afternoon. She hadn’t seen it yet. It was Mistral’s work, the lettering, paid in vegetables. I’d hung it by the door of the new room where she’d pass it every morning of our life.

BELLFLOWER & BREW BY TREVIL. FARM BLENDS BY BRACK.

She stood in front of it with her hand over her mouth.

“By Brack,” she said finally.

“You’ll want a farm line. Winter blends. The moonbell’s better here than anywhere. Zeph’s charm on the roof will make sure it dries well, and the⁠—”

“You put your name on my tea.”

“Other way around,” I said. “Put your tea on my name.”

She turned around, and the look on her face was one I’d never seen at any market.

I stood in the room I’d built her while she crossed it.

She backed me into the counter. Oak, at my height, which I’d cut and planed and oiled myself two months ago. Back then, I hadn’t known how I’d use it.

Though I’d hoped.

The counter held.

Every legend wants one broken piece of furniture. This house was not going to supply one. I build too well.

There was one thing still owed in the house, though, and she collected it.

She put the kettle on. Her stove’s first fire and first brew in the new room. She reached into the cupboard and brought out a tin I knew.