"No entering my sleeping space because you’re annoyed with me," Dove said. "No treating a question like permission to take something. If there’s an actual emergency, say what it is. Like you did with the pipe."
Ash looked at the new brace beneath the shelf. "Those are your conditions for supplying the clinic?"
"Those are my conditions for having you at this counter. We’ll discuss bottles tomorrow."
He stood silent for long enough that she felt every inch of the little gate between them. She wanted him to agree. She also wanted to stop needing his agreement to feel safe in a place she had worked to make her own.
"I can do that," he said at last.
"Then do it when I’m being irritating. It’s very easy to respect someone while they’re making your afternoon convenient."
His mouth tightened in a way that might have become a smile on a less difficult man. "I doubt you intend to give me much practice at that."
"I’d hate to stunt your growth."
He left before she could decide what the strange little pause between them meant. Dove checked the pipe herself, shut the tarp, and lay on the dry mat with one blanket. The other was still drying elsewhere, but the heat had returned and she could sleep here safely.
Sprout confirmed eighteen coins. The sales mission expired unpaid because the stall had stayed closed. The completed Favor Coin mission kept the hot-drinks shelf unlocked.
Day Eight offered two cloths and four buttons for six coins. Dove bought them, leaving twelve. The new missions were to sell three items for ten bonus coins and earn five Favor Coins from eligible men to unlock a twenty-coin tail brush.
"My tail has its own spending category now?"
"You complained about knots."
"I complained about the whole tail. Show me the coffee."
She accepted both tasks and bought one six-coin sachet from the unlocked shelf, leaving six. Behind the tarp, she brought it out and made the drink with ordinary kitchen water. It was black coffee again, but it was hers.
Before Ash arrived, she wrote her water terms: small samples when requested and agreed, each use explained, no promise of endless deliveries. The pool replenished. Her patience did not.
When Kael and Ash came together, she kept the gate shut and the counter clear. Her notes stayed under her own hand, and her personal bottle remained stored.
Kael read her terms first. He asked whether keeping a sample overnight might eventually be possible, and she said they could discuss it after more tests. He accepted that answer without pretending it gave him everything he wanted.
Ash asked what the clinic would pay. Dove had expected to enjoy that part. Instead she found herself thinking of the warm bench, dry socks, and the way Kael had said he would use what he already had.
"For the next small test, replace the container if one leaves with you," she said. "After that, we agree on each order. I’m not selling a cure we haven’t proved."
"You could ask for more," Ash said.
"I could also promise more. I’m trying not to be an asshole in either direction."
Kael’s ears moved before he hid his amusement. Dove pointed at him with the pencil. "Medical professionalism, please. I’m attempting something very serious while wearing borrowed slippers."
The healer asked to buy one cloth, one of the new sewing needles, and two safety pins for the clinic’s ordinary supplies. In exchange, he offered a small metal spoon and a clean square of linen from supplies he was allowed to trade. Dove checked both before accepting.
Four items cleared the three-item sales target. Sprout paid ten bonus coins, bringing her to sixteen. Dove put the spoon beside her coffee and wrote down the remaining stock.
Thorne passed with a maintenance crate, stopped, and looked at the new brace beneath her shelf. Ash told him where the crate belonged. The panther nodded, but his eyes stayed on Dove.
"It held overnight?" he asked.
"Everything’s dry. You can stop glaring at my bed."
He almost smiled. She found herself smiling back before remembering she was annoyed with him. Five coins registered as happiness, raising her balance to twenty-one and unlocking the tail brush. She left it unbought.
"Successful engagement," Sprout reported.
"He asked about a pipe."
"You answered about a bed."
Dove nearly swallowed her coffee wrong. Across the counter, Kael studied Thorne while Ash repeated the crate instruction. This time the panther moved, although he looked back before leaving the hall.
Kael left with his purchase when a clinic attendant called him. Ash remained, reading the last line of her water terms without touching the paper.
"You want the right to stop," he said.
"I want you to know I already have it."
He looked at her then, properly enough that she wished the counter were either wider or much less important. Dove held his gaze, aware of his dark hair, the pale line near his jaw, and the fact that finding him beautiful still did not make him easy to bear.
"I was wrong about the passage," he said.
She went still. He did not rush to fill the silence, so she made him finish it.
"You told him to let go. I heard you. What I said afterward was wrong."
"Yes, it was."
The words came out rougher than she wanted. She had imagined making him feel stupid when this moment arrived. Instead she wanted to sit down before her knees gave away how long she had been carrying it.
"I’m sorry," he said.
She looked at the spoon beside her mug and let the apology exist without polishing it into something larger. It did not restore the feeling she had lost in that passage. It meant he had finally stopped making her argue with a version of events he knew was false.
"I heard you," she said. "I’m still angry."
"I know."
For once, she believed that he did. The quiet that followed felt dangerous in a different way, because he was watching her as if the answer mattered beyond keeping order in his hall.
"What happened to you out there?" he asked. "You disappeared for two weeks, and now every answer gives me another question."
Dove’s fingers closed around the pencil. She could keep telling him she did not remember, letting everyone imagine a damaged version of the woman they knew. Or she could offer one truth without handing him every secret inside her head.
"You keep asking where my supplies came from," she said. "Maybe you should ask where I came from."