Dove turned the sign around and checked the hall before leaving. Varek was near the stores, but he had already told her he did not watch merchandise. She did not ask, deciding that a short trip to the clinic hardly needed an armed escort for five pieces of soap.
The recess opened onto the eastern side of the common hall. A counter crossed most of its front, with a narrow gap on the left. Behind it, the raised sleeping shelf ran along the back wall beneath the warm pipe. Her tarp hid the mat, but the new socks and combs sat in clear view on the crate.
The clinic was through the wash passage, around one bend, and two doors down. Dove could have packed everything into the system space first. Instead, she pictured returning in a minute and saved herself the effort.
Inside the clinic, Kael set a tin on a small table and moved a lamp closer. The light caught the bare skin along his forearms and the strong, careful hands turning the lid. His wolf ears angled toward a patient behind the screen even while he spoke to her.
Up close, his eyes were amber rather than brown, warm in color even when his expression was tired. A pale strand of hair lay against his cheek. Dove noticed all of it, then wished her brain would spend that energy finding affordable shampoo.
"The hinge is sound," he said. "The lid closes tightly, but it doesn’t lock. One needle and two safety pins inside. Look before you agree."
She did. The needle had a proper eye, the pins closed, and the tin smelled faintly of whatever it had held before. She could wash that out. It was big enough for small valuables and sturdy enough not to collapse when somebody looked at it.
"Two cloths," she said. "No future favors hiding under the lid?"
"No future favors."
She gave him the cloths. He checked their weave and stacked them beside the sealed bandages. There were antibiotics in a labeled box, antiseptic bottles, clean wraps, and supplies carefully sorted by use. They needed replenishing eventually, but this was a working clinic, not a cave where everyone hoped wounds would get bored and leave.
A patient coughed behind the screen. Kael went to him, and Dove stayed beside the table while he found a cup and checked the man’s breathing. Her route out remained clear. Nobody had ordered her to wait.
She should have taken the tin and gone. Instead, she lingered because this was the first room she had entered that morning without someone looking disappointed she existed.
When Kael returned, he found her testing the safety pins. "You can keep those if you need to repair your clothes."
"They’re part of the payment. I plan to keep them even if my clothes achieve inner peace."
He gave a brief, surprised laugh. Two coins brought her balance to sixty-two, and Sprout congratulated her on the promising atmosphere. Dove closed the notice before it could ruin an ordinary moment by putting a little heart on it.
"You weren’t laughing yesterday," she said before she could decide whether she wanted to know why.
Kael looked at her, and the ease went out of the room. "Yesterday I was trying to work out whether you were confused or seeing what I’d believe."
"And today?"
"I’m still trying."
She nodded as if that had not stung. He had treated her gently, and she had quietly added being believed to the service without asking. That was her mistake, though knowing it did not make the answer easier to hear.
"Well, thanks for the tin. I’ll leave you to it."
On the way back, she passed the women’s passage. Mara sat inside her open doorway while an attendant adjusted a lamp. The older woman saw Dove, gave the tin a brief glance, and returned to her conversation. There was no invitation to stop.
She kept walking. The tin clicked shut beneath her thumb, and she pictured using it for the kind of small clutter she used to leave in drawers. A needle, a folded note, things nobody would consider treasure unless they had recently lost everything. She had missed owning something ordinary more than she had understood.
She told herself the trade had gone well, which was true. She also told herself she had not wanted an invitation, which was less convincing.
The stall looked wrong before she reached it. One comb lay crooked across a sock, and the soap paper had been opened instead of folded the way she left it.
She put the tin on the counter and counted slowly. Three soap quarters instead of five. Two cloths instead of the three she had left after taking Kael’s order. One comb instead of two. Both pairs of socks remained, as did the two bottles.
She checked beneath the counter and the sleeping tarp. The missing goods were not there. Her blankets had not moved, the sign still said closed, and nobody had left a trade payment or a note.
For a moment she stood with her hands flat on the crate. She could see exactly where she had chosen convenience over putting things away. That knowledge did not stop the sick little drop in her stomach.
"Retrieve the missing stock," she told Sprout, although she already knew what it would say.
"Physical contact is required. I cannot recover items from another location."
Of course it couldn’t. She had bought a shop, not a remote-control conscience for strangers.
Varek came past and found her lifting the same piece of soap paper for the third time. "What’s wrong?"
"Someone took two soap quarters, a cloth, and a comb while I was at the clinic."
He looked at the empty places. "Who?"
"If I knew that, this would be a much shorter conversation."
"Did anybody see them?"
She looked around the busy hall, at men eating, carrying supplies, and avoiding her eyes. Nobody stepped forward. She had left goods unattended in a place where people protected her life without caring much about her plans.
Ash stopped beside Varek, listened to the guard’s explanation, and looked at the closed sign.
"You want a business," he said to Dove. "Did you expect me to station a soldier beside your soap?"