Chapter 99: Six Months Was a Long Time to Be a Bitch

Nobody had agreed to give Saffra the loading space. The kitchen owner said so first, followed by the radio buyer, who had come down to collect a crate of tools. Dove stepped aside and let the men answer while Saffra’s supply follower stared at the mud.

"Then ask the keeper to move them," she said. "I’m going home before I do something expensive."

She meant it. They had fixed the door, fulfilled their agreement, and earned their room. Standing outside all evening to guard a patch of gravel wasn’t another service included in that price.

Thorne walked back with her while Edrik stayed long enough to hear the keeper promise the space would be clear in the morning. At dinner, Dove caught herself glaring at a perfectly innocent plate of chicken and rice. Thorne gave her the crispy piece from his own plate without saying anything.

She leaned against his shoulder. "You don’t have to feed me every time I’m angry."

"I know. I also know you wanted that piece."

That was worse, somehow. She kissed his cheek and ate it before she could become embarrassingly emotional about chicken.

Over breakfast the next morning, Thorne looked pleased to find fried potatoes piled on his plate, all crisp edges and extra salt. He’d mentioned liking them last night, so Dove had asked the cook for those pieces. "Don’t look so surprised," she told him, stealing one. "I do listen when you talk. Occasionally. When there’s food involved."

She set Edrik’s extra coffee beside him and sat between them to eat. For a little while, she could hear cutlery and the scrape of Thorne chasing a potato around his plate instead of Saffra shouting across the yard. Then the bear slid his mug toward her so she could warm her fingers around it, and she forgot the woman altogether.

After her morning wash on Day Forty-Three, Dove settled their room before opening. She paid for nights Forty-Three through Forty-Six, with an owned cooking pot, canned meat, and part of their rice. Dove watched the keeper write the dates, then asked him to stop describing her room to anyone looking for her. He agreed, looking mildly offended that she thought it needed saying.

The crates remained in place. Dove could see their red ties from the walkway while she opened four packs of lightweight rain ponchos. Sprout wanted three sold and offered a drying frame on the reward shelf. She glanced at the men clearing wet gutters, then back at the stock. Its timing was getting suspiciously useful.

Could it promise more rain goods tomorrow? Sprout said the batch would still rotate. "Then I’m not promising anyone a second delivery." She set the packs where the gutter crew could see them.

She sold three packs before breakfast ended. The men clearing gutters traded sealed noodles, work cloths, and jars of peaches. Her own household kept the fourth pack for four Favor. The ordinary tasks waited until she could finish moving the trades, because shouting at a crate didn’t count as exercise.

Down by the cold shed, the kitchen owner had finally started shifting Saffra’s crates onto a pallet outside the reserved patch. He had two witnesses, the keeper’s permission, and every reason to look miserable about a task that should have taken five minutes.

Saffra arrived before the second crate moved. She stepped down from her chair and ordered her followers to put it back. The radio buyer stayed where he was instead of making room.

"I need my tools," he said. "You can keep your goods. You can’t keep the path."

Dove almost thanked him, but Saffra turned toward her first.

"This is because of you."

"Yes, I personally invented the need to walk past things." Dove pointed toward the pallet. "Your boxes are dry. Your men can reach them. You have everything except an audience willing to pretend this makes sense."

A few men laughed. Saffra’s face changed, and Dove knew she had pushed too far for a woman used to silence after speaking. She didn’t take the words back.

Saffra shoved a crate across the cleared patch. When Dove stepped around it, Saffra reached for her arm. Dove moved her leading foot out instead of leaning backward, exactly as Edrik had made her practice. The hand closed on air.

Thorne caught the nearest follower before he could crowd her. Edrik stayed on her other side, telling two approaching men to stop with a calmness that made them look at his hands.

Dove’s heart slammed against her ribs. She hated that Saffra had made her feel it here, in front of her own customers. She also hated that the system chose this moment to reopen the capsule offer.

"Three hundred Favor," Sprout reminded her. "Direct contact required. One adult target."

She looked at the woman reaching again, and every sensible thought about saving for training lost a very short fight.

"Bought," she told it privately, and the capsule arrived in her palm. When Saffra grabbed for her sleeve, Dove brushed the small shell against the woman’s outer collar and crushed it as instructed. There was no cloud, no splash, and no dramatic burst of light.

Edrik blinked and stepped back as Saffra stopped mid-insult. The follower beside her covered his nose with his sleeve. A carrier said something muffled that sounded very much like a prayer.

Dove put a hand over her own mouth, half protection and half an attempt not to laugh. Whatever the capsule had done, it hadn’t mistaken the target. Saffra’s mates didn’t carry it when they moved away, but the air nearest her had become a serious argument against standing close.

"Take me inside," Saffra demanded, glaring at the carriers until her men lifted the chair with their faces turned away. Nobody volunteered to argue about the crates after that. Dove watched them retreat, then turned toward Thorne with her eyes watering.

"Don’t ask," she said.

He pressed his lips together. Edrik didn’t bother trying to hide his smile.

Back at the counter, Sprout settled the rewards while she stored the peaches. Keeping her ponchos had cost four Favor. Getting her own back had cost three hundred. Dove opened the manual’s page and stared at how much farther away it had become, then shut it before Sprout could tell her what she’d already worked out.

"I could have been responsible," she muttered.

"You were very quick with your feet," Edrik offered.

She laughed, then caught his hand before he stood. "They stayed. Those men down there. They didn’t even ask for anything."

He let her hold him while she looked back toward the loading yard. The keeper was addressing Saffra’s supply man now, with the kitchen owner beside him. Before that household used the yard again, he said, it would replace every trader’s damaged goods.

Dove had spent three hundred Favor to win an argument, but she wasn’t the only person who had finally stopped backing down.