Chapter 192: She Wanted a Room, Not Permission

The landlord found Dove measuring the space beneath the counter with string. She looked up before he could assume she was planning to remove part of his building.

"Storage boxes," she told him. "I’m keeping the room in one piece for now."

He laughed and asked whether she intended to renew. Dove set the string down, called her husbands over so they could hear the terms, and explained what she wanted. Another fourteen nights, with the right to close for short recovery trips without anybody deciding the shop had been abandoned.

The landlord looked mildly puzzled. If she paid for the period and told him when she was away, he had no reason to rent it twice. Dove realized she had been preparing for an argument he hadn’t actually offered.

They agreed on fourteen nights, Days One Hundred through One Hundred Thirteen, paid in ordinary stock when the new period began tomorrow. He would need access for a building emergency, not to move somebody else into her bed while she was gone. She set aside goods she could spare and asked him to write down the dates before she talked herself into expecting another catch.

Thorne listened without taking over. Edrik glanced at the dates, then at her, and she nodded before finishing. Fourteen nights with a bed waiting for them, even if they took a trip. She hadn’t realized how badly she wanted that until she heard herself ask.

After the landlord left, she returned to the clothing category she’d chosen that morning: work shirts, five sales for sixty-five normal coins. She had already washed, eaten, and practiced before opening. A sample hung on the ordinary counter; the remaining packs waited behind glass for approved trades. Her customers appreciated shirts that looked designed for their shoulders instead of being punished by them.

Edrik tried one on over his usual undershirt to help her show the fit. Dove forgot what she had been saying halfway through a sentence and had to begin again. Thorne watched her with open amusement.

"I’m assessing the product," she informed him.

"Very thoroughly."

"Do you want to help or be annoying?"

"I have time for both."

The customer laughed and bought his pack. Sprout immediately noted increased interest, which was extremely rude when Dove was trying to remember what she charged.

"In the shirts or my husband?" she asked privately.

"The response cannot be reliably separated."

"Then put away your little love calculator. I’m busy." She gave the customer his purchase and caught Edrik smirking. Apparently he knew exactly why she’d lost her place.

Near noon, Iris arrived with a small offline video on a charged phone. Nolan had sent it through the survey workers who visited the hotel. Dove asked whether she had to look before lunch.

"You don’t," Iris said. "It’s unpleasant, not urgent for your shop."

That alone made Dove more willing to listen. They moved behind the counter where the screen wouldn’t gather a crowd. The clip showed the lake edge, the crooked dock, and a fish laid on a board with a tool beside it for size. Along its back were thick raised plates that didn’t look like ordinary scales.

Dove held her sandwich well away from the screen, suddenly less eager for another bite. Edrik watched from her shoulder. Thorne studied the animal and said he’d never seen one like that, which wasn’t the same as identifying what it was.

The survey crew had found more than one dead fish with similar changes. They were checking the water and the exposed shoreline. Nobody had a cause to give Iris, and she wasn’t turning guesses into a public announcement.

"So we stay out of the lake," Dove said.

"And don’t collect unfamiliar dead things because they might be worth money."

Dove looked at both husbands. "I feel unfairly seen."

Edrik’s smile barely moved. "I wasn’t going to say it."

"Your face was preparing a whole conversation."

Iris put the phone away. Dove asked Sprout privately to add the new report to the lake warning, keeping the survey crew’s guesses separate from what the video actually showed. It offered no comforting explanation, which annoyed her less than a wrong one would have. She still wanted to swim someday. Apparently she now needed a place with fewer teeth.

After lunch, Dove touch-stored a clean spare cloth from their permitted salvage behind the closed curtain, completing the one-item task. Then she fitted the recovered boxes beneath the counter and used the freed shelf space for goods people could actually see. Thorne helped move the heavy pieces. Edrik checked that the path from the front door to the rear curtain remained clear.

She slid the last box under the counter and looked at the shelves they had cleared. This time she could pack a bag without packing her whole life, and that made her want to go somewhere just to try it.

The landlord returned briefly to check the proposed goods for tomorrow’s payment. Dove brought out the agreed bundles and kept them separate from the shop stock so she couldn’t sell the same supplies by accident. He counted them with her, then left them in her care until the new period began.

Once he was gone, she stood in the rear doorway and looked at the space they’d made. The bed took most of the back wall. The washroom was to her right, and the curtain gave her a little distance from the shelves and customers. It wasn’t large, but she knew where to set down a cup without somebody moving it for her.

Thorne came to stand beside her. "Still want it?"

"Yes. I also want to go places."

"We can want both."

She leaned against his shoulder while Edrik carried the last box past them. He paused to kiss her hair, then went on with the work as though finding her standing there with Thorne was the most ordinary sight in the world. Dove wanted to keep that part too.

Late that afternoon, the familiar carrier stopped at the restaurant to collect a message. Dove saw him through the window and asked whether he would return to the freight yard that night. He would walk there, he said, provided the main road stayed clear. The freight yard was a local stop, not another base he could jump to. His next jump would continue his circuit rather than bring him straight back to her door.

She also asked about Thorne’s father. Still no answer to their inquiry. Thorne heard from the counter and went quiet, his thumb pressing into the folded cloth he held. Dove touched that hand until he let her take it. She couldn’t give him news. She could stop him waiting for it alone. Then she looked down at the signed statement Ash had sent. She had read it enough times to know what it did and what it didn’t. Waiting longer wouldn’t make his old words kinder. It might only give them more room in her head.

Dove called her husbands over before she went outside. "I think I’m ready to hear him say it where he can see my face," she told them.