Dove decided Ash could inspect the goods without inspecting the inside of her skull. It was a modest boundary, and she intended to defend it.
Day Five brought four tea bags and six safety pins for eight coins. She bought them from her remaining twelve, leaving four, then set the unopened parcel beside yesterday’s unsold mittens and lip balm. Sprout offered a fresh three-trade quest worth ten coins. Yesterday’s had expired after Mara’s single paid exchange, with no reward.
"At least today’s tea doesn’t require emotional contact," Dove told it. "Very progressive of you."
She brought out only a list and one sample cloth. Nothing else would sit unattended on the counter, including her papers. She could be tired, frightened, and annoyed without paying for the same lesson twice.
The salvage keeper came after breakfast carrying a cupboard panel with hinges attached. Mara’s advice had got her to the right person yesterday afternoon, and they had agreed on the work before he brought anything over.
One pair of thick socks bought the panel, a working latch, and fitting. He checked Varek’s note, made it swing inward, and let Dove test it three times before accepting payment. The little gate did not make the recess a fortress, but it stopped a person stepping straight into her sleeping space.
She stood behind it with the latch shut and felt ridiculous relief. The counter still faced a busy hall. She still had a tarp instead of a proper wall. But getting to her now required deliberately opening something she had closed.
The keeper warned her about a rough edge near the hinge. He had covered it, but the metal beneath remained sharp if someone pried the cover away. Dove marked it on her notes and promised not to test it with her fingers.
Her next customer traded a serviceable mug for one soap quarter. She checked for cracks and kept it, leaving two quarters for sale. When the man asked what she planned to put in it, she told him she was keeping her options open between coffee and a quiet breakdown.
"I have coffee," another customer said from behind him.
Dove turned carefully, refusing to let desperation do the bargaining before she arrived. The man held a small packet, folded tight, and she asked to inspect it at the counter.
Inside was ground coffee, stale but dry and unmistakable. He wanted her remaining comb, and she agreed after checking the packet for damp. Sprout paid ten coins when that third trade finished, bringing her balance to fourteen.
For once, she let the number fade without resenting it. She owned a gate, a mug, and enough coffee for a cup. None of them required agreeing that a man’s hands belonged on her.
She asked the kitchen for hot water and made the coffee weak enough to stretch the little packet. She let the grounds settle at the bottom before sipping from the top, accepting a little grit rather than pretending she owned a filter. There was no milk and no sugar. Yesterday’s version of her would have argued with someone over the price of this cup; today’s held it in both hands and breathed in before drinking.
It tasted slightly burned and nowhere near worth crying over, which was why she waited until her mouth stopped trembling before taking another sip.
Yesterday, she had wanted her old morning. Today, for a few minutes, she had built a new one she could stand to wake up for.
At midday, she put the mug behind the tarp and laid out the stock for inspection. Two soap quarters, one cloth, one pair of socks, one sale bottle, two pairs of mittens, two tins of balm, four tea bags, and six new safety pins. Her personal bottle, partially filled with healing water, stood by the wash basin behind her.
Ash arrived alone. He looked at the gate, then at her cleaner hair, and finally at the goods arranged on the counter.
"You found another supplier overnight?"
"The same one. Different selection each day. I can’t order everything I want."
"Where did they come from?"
"I don’t have a location you can visit."
His expression hardened. "You expect that to satisfy me?"
"No. I expect you to dislike it while counting the soap."
He inspected the plain labels and compared the stock with her written purchases and trades. Dove stayed on her side of the counter. She could feel him noticing the closed gate each time his gaze moved toward the sleeping tarp.
"Open it," he said.
"You can look from there. If you need something moved, tell me what."
"I need to know what you’re bringing into the Warren."
"Then ask about the goods. My bed isn’t a delivery address."
He looked at her for a long moment, anger held behind the same controlled expression he had worn in the wash passage. She did not look away this time.
"And yesterday," she added, "I went for water. I didn’t invite what happened. You can keep disliking me without rewriting that."
His jaw tightened. He gave no apology, but he did not repeat the accusation either. Dove refused to count the silence as agreement. She moved the sample cloth so he could see the rest of the shelf from the hall.
Ash checked the gate fastening next. Before she could repeat the keeper’s warning, he lifted the loose protective cover near the hinge. The sharp edge caught one knuckle, leaving a narrow line of blood.
"The cover was there for a reason," she said. "Even my furniture comes with boundaries."
He looked at the cut with irritation. Dove reached for the bottle beside her basin without thinking, the same way she would have reached for tap water when someone scraped a hand at work.
"Here. Rinse it before you smear it on everything."
He took the bottle, poured a little over his knuckle into the basin, and stopped.
Dove saw the skin close at the same moment he did. The narrow red line faded beneath the clean water, leaving an unbroken knuckle and a silence she could not repair with any joke she knew.
Six coins registered as shock, bringing her to twenty. She did not look at the number. Ash turned his hand once, then set the open bottle on the counter between them.
"Dove," he said, much more quietly than before. "Where did you get that water?"