Sprout’s next assortment contained two pairs of mittens and two tins of lip balm. There was no lock, no door, and no miraculous attitude adjustment for the Alpha.
"Day Four selection," it announced. "Fifteen Favor Coins."
"Excellent. My lips will be soft while I tell people to fuck off."
Dove bought the bundle, leaving sixty coins. She kept yesterday’s unsold stock on the space’s shelves and added the new items to her paper list. It looked more convincing now, a small selection of useful things instead of a woman trying to build a future out of soap crumbs.
Today’s quest offered ten coins for three completed trades. She accepted it, though she refused Sprout’s suggestion that a private demonstration of the lip balm might attract customers. The supplier had apparently mistaken her mouth for a promotional booth.
Mara arrived after breakfast with both attendants and the padded stool. One man placed it beyond the chalk line while the other carried her covered cup. Nobody expected her to lug wash water, and she inspected Dove’s closed gap with the air of someone reviewing an argument she had already won.
"I heard about your goods," she said.
"The publicity department has been very efficient."
"Would you like advice, or would you prefer to be irritated first?"
"I can manage both. What’s the price?"
Mara asked for one cloth in exchange for explaining who controlled the salvage, what kind of fastening would fit the recess, and what a fair trade for the work might be. Dove considered it, then agreed. Guessing wrong could cost more than a cloth, and she was finished pretending ignorance was cheaper.
She fetched the cloth behind the tarp and handed it over. One sale cloth remained in the space. Mara checked the edges and passed it to her attendant without volunteering to install anything herself.
"Don’t ask Ash for a private storeroom," she said. "You already have a place. Ask to put a hinged half-gate in that gap and a fastening on the inner side. The salvage keeper has cupboard doors."
"Will that keep someone out?"
"It will stop someone wandering in while you sleep. It won’t stop a determined warrior. Neither will a blanket you keep glaring at."
Dove looked at the tarp. It was doing its best with a terrible job description.
Mara explained where the salvage counter stood, within sight of the main hall. The keeper could choose a panel, fit hinges, and include a latch. A pair of Dove’s thick socks might interest him; he had complained about his own socks while escorting Mara the previous evening.
"That’s information," Mara added. "Not a promised price. You’ll ask him yourself."
"I know how negotiating works. I’m just adjusting to the part where everybody knows the last customer’s criminal history."
Mara’s eyes rested on her face. "If this loss of memory is real, you have an opportunity. Don’t expect other people to enjoy handing it to you."
"I’m not asking you to like me."
"You keep looking as though you’d be relieved if I did."
Dove wanted to deny it. Instead, she looked down at the list and crossed out the cloth she had paid. Mara had earned one honest answer by noticing something Dove would have preferred to keep.
"It would make the room less crowded," she said. "Being alone would be easier if there weren’t so many people here to demonstrate it."
Mara said nothing for a moment. Then she stood with her attendant’s help and told Dove the salvage keeper returned after the midday meal.
She left with her cloth. No hug, no sudden forgiveness, no offer to adopt an inconvenient fox. Dove waited until she was gone before rubbing her face with both hands.
Varek passed soon afterward, and Dove asked whether a gate would violate her stall terms. He checked the chalk line and told her the panel had to swing inward. The shared passage had to remain clear.
"Can you write that down?"
He did, as part of the same record he kept for Ash. When she asked whether he could help measure it, he pointed her toward the salvage keeper and continued his round. She had permission, not a handyman.
At least it was permission she could use. She gathered her personal basin from the space and went to the wash area for warm water. The healing pool supplied water, but its coolness did nothing to persuade her to wash her face in it on an already miserable morning.
She left no sale stock outside this time. Her papers went inside the tin, the tin went onto a shelf in the space, and she checked the counter before leaving. Learning cost her something. She intended to get her money’s worth.
She also moved her mat farther from the counter before leaving, keeping the place she slept out of a customer’s easy reach. It took less than a minute. That small improvement pleased her more than it probably should have, and she let herself enjoy it. She wanted a home here eventually, even if for now home meant fewer strangers looking at her pillow.
The wash passage turned behind a thick support column before opening onto the taps. Footsteps and bowls clattered in the hall behind her, close enough that she had no reason to feel she had left the occupied part of the Warren.
Thorne stood beyond the bend with one hand braced against the wall. His coat hung open, and sweat darkened the hair at his temples despite the cooler passage. His golden eyes found her before she could decide whether to ask if he was ill.
"Are you waiting for the tap?" she asked. "Because I only need a little."
His gaze dropped to her throat, then lifted again. She disliked the delay before he answered, and she disliked the way he moved into the space she needed to pass.
"Why do you smell different?"
"Soap. Revolutionary stuff. You can buy some when I’m open."
He drew a breath that sounded wrong. Dove stopped trying to make the conversation ordinary and took a step back toward the hall.
"Move, Thorne. I’m going back."
He caught her wrist before she reached the corner. The basin struck the floor, and Dove hit the wall hard enough to lose the rest of her sentence.