Chapter 30: She Tore Her Dress. He Lost His Words.

Dove had a perfectly good answer ready for Ash, right up until blood ran over Thorne’s fingers. The torn cart edge had opened his forearm above the wrist, and he was holding it low while Ash demanded to know what she had promised him.

She stopped listening halfway through the next accusation and hurried around the counter. "Move your arm away from the oil," she told Thorne, reaching for the clean inside of her dress hem. He looked down as she tore a strip from the already uneven edge, then stared at her face instead of the bare inch of leg she had exposed.

"Dove, it isn’t deep," he said, but he gave her his arm when she asked. She could see that for herself. She could also see him pretending the blood did not matter because everyone wanted a different argument.

Her personal bottle was behind the gate, filled with pool water before her morning wash. She fetched it without entering the space in the crowded hall. With her back blocking the nearest watchers, she poured a little over the shallow cut and pressed the folded cloth over it immediately, keeping both hands around his forearm while she tied the strip. His skin warmed under her fingers, and the bleeding slowed beneath the covering.

Thorne drew a sharp breath. His eyes searched her face, but she murmured, "Not here," before he could ask about the bottle. She put it inside her gate and stepped in front of him, which would have looked more impressive if his shoulders had not remained visible on both sides of her.

"Now," she told Ash, "you were saying something deeply fucking stupid."

Varek sent a worker for absorbent rags and moved the nearest lamp away from the oil. Rusk pulled his cart back onto the marked route. Ash’s gaze followed the strip around Thorne’s arm, then returned to Dove’s torn dress.

"He left his work again," Ash said. "And you’re very quick to defend him."

"His shift starts later," Varek answered before Thorne had to. "I changed it after night watch."

Dove folded her arms, keeping herself between the men. "He caught your unsecured load before it hit my counter. I didn’t offer a free orgasm with every prevented workplace accident."

Three Favor Coins registered from Ash’s irritation, raising that purse to twelve. She closed the panel before Sprout could mistake the income for a successful morning. Her normal balance stayed at eight, and neither number improved Ash’s face.

He checked the wheel seam and asked Rusk why the lid had not been secured. The porter said he had thought it was tied, then blamed the narrow hall. Dove pointed to the clear route, the cart beyond its line, and the goods she had pulled back herself.

"A careless load doesn’t prove deliberate harm," Ash said. "Thorne has spent days seeing whatever you want him to see."

Behind her, Thorne’s fingers curled once before relaxing. "Then check the load instead of discussing what you imagine she offered me."

Dove did not need him to threaten anyone. The steady answer made her chest hurt more than a dramatic fight would have, because he could have walked away from this mess and had stayed beside her instead.

Kael arrived with clean supplies and checked the covering at Thorne’s wrist without untying it in the oily passage. Dove said she had rinsed and wrapped the cut. The healer asked whether bleeding continued; Thorne said it had stopped. Nobody had seen the wound close beneath her hand, and she had no intention of demonstrating.

Ash ordered tied loads and a fresh inspection before any oil cart entered the hall. He still refused to call the spill deliberate sabotage. Dove could accept an investigation. She could not accept the reason he had given for dismissing Thorne.

"Stay away from my counter today," she told him. When he reminded her this was his settlement, she pointed toward the rest of it. "Then you’ve got plenty of places to stand that aren’t here."

He left with the load record instead of an apology. Kael stayed long enough to trade a wrapped portion of cheese for two chocolate squares, which he said were for himself, not the clinic. Dove inspected the wrapping, recorded the trade, and received ten normal coins for completing the day’s chocolate target. Eighteen normal, twelve Favor, and one square still belonging to Sprout.

After the spill was contained, Thorne removed the oily coat. His shirt pulled across broad shoulders as he folded it, and Dove discovered that apparently she could be furious and appreciate arms at the same time. Human skin, old scars, entirely unreasonable muscles. Her brain needed supervision.

She bought the remaining chocolate for four Favor Coins, leaving eight, then held it out while looking at a crack beside her slipper. "For standing up for me. Before you say anything, it’s a chocolate, not an engagement ring."

He took it carefully, his fingers brushing hers. "I wasn’t going to say that," he replied. "I was going to ask if you’ll share it."

She looked up then. The warmth in his face was harder to face than Ash’s anger, and she hated that he could probably smell how thoroughly her body had noticed. "That’s terrible gift etiquette," she said, and broke the square when he offered it back.

She ate her half slowly, letting the chocolate melt instead of swallowing it before she could enjoy it. For a few seconds she could almost believe this was an ordinary breakfast beside somebody who liked her company. Then his knee brushed hers under the bench, and ordinary became a much more difficult word.

His quiet laugh earned two Favor Coins, bringing that purse to ten and completing the five-coin daily target. The drawstring bag unlocked at eight normal coins. She bought one behind the tarp later, leaving ten normal, and put her papers inside before returning to their cooling breakfast.

Thorne had covered both bowls. He passed hers over without asking for the bottle, and she sat beside him with enough room for her tail. The spaghetti was still warm in the middle. She ate because she was hungry, then stayed because she wanted to.

Across the hall, Varek opened Rusk’s load record. A loose scrap slipped out, its blue ruled edge matching the warning left on her shelf. Dove lowered her spoon before the next bite, watching him reach for it.