Starting from the day of her arrival, Jane gave her aunt a quick but thorough account of her time in Glenfall. It was no problem at all to share about friend-making, recipe-practicing, and even bakery-owning. Halfway through, however, Jane realized there was no way she could keep Allen out of the story. Not if she was to explain exactly why she had found herself at the bottom of a waterfall for long enough to be nearly crushed to death by a nature spirit the size of a large city street.

  “Interesting,” Aunt Cecelia said when Jane had finished. “And you said it felt odd?”

  “Very odd.” Jane searched for sufficient words. “Like… it wobbled. And it wobbled enough to shake the world around it.”

  “That’s definitely something. I don’t know what, as I’m not there to feel it myself. I doubt I’d know much more about it than you, even if I were. But it’s something. Did it feel dangerous?”

  “It felt dangerous in the way big things do, but not in the way a wolf does. Does that make sense?”

  Jane felt she could almost hear her aunt’s nod behind the veil of the communication magic.

  “It does. Well, I suppose you should keep me informed on that. Learn everything you can. For now, I wouldn’t say that it’s anything worth panicking about, but I hereby command you not to leave.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “I would have thought you’d be pleased to hear it. You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

  Jane was, of course, but that was beside the point. She had shared some truly immense gossip of exactly the kind she knew her aunt to love, and the woman had hardly blinked.

  “I think you know what I mean, Aunt. I know you have more to say.”

  Her aunt laughed. “I do. Good for you, Jane. Very good for you. Now go rest. If I heard your story correctly, you have plenty to do tomorrow, and less help to get through it than you had today.”

  —

  Jane obeyed her aunt. She spent the night dreaming of very nice evenings, walks through the woods, and enormous, possibly deadly dragons. When she got up in the morning, her work was ready for her. She wiped her face, put on a conservative dress and apron, and got to it.

  For her bakery’s opening day, she had left some pre-measured ingredients in her cold box the night before. Today, she didn’t have that prep done. She immediately felt the time pinch of having to complete those tasks on the fly.

  She was thankful when all the practice and lessons learned from the first morning started taking over. They bought back some time for her as dawn rapidly approached. By the first knock on her door, she had a healthy supply of breads, cookies, and keln ready for her customers.

  Yet she was still behind. And, as the biggest loss to her efficiency, she didn’t have Bella nearby. Jane didn’t realize how much the second pair of hands had helped her until they were gone. Now folks were waiting to pay while she pulled batches of cookies out of the oven, or asking her questions while she tried to measure ingredients. Every task was trivial until it was combined with prioritizing and reprioritizing every other task.

  Somehow, she made it through the morning rush, and then the post-lunch wave. People were patient when she couldn’t get to them right away. The dinner holds and outright purchases marched on until, around mid-afternoon, the flow of traffic started trickling off as it had the day before.

  Jane collapsed onto her stool, exhausted but happy. Her vague worries about not having created enough of a foothold on her opening day were now thoroughly assuaged. People needed bread, and hers was close by and reasonably good. Apparently, that was all it took.

  All but the latest customers were now cleared out for the day. It wasn’t long before Allen arrived, pulling a few huge stacks of wooden components along in his cart.

  “I left them partially disassembled so I could move them, but it will only take a minute to fill it up,” he explained. “How did today go, by the way? Did you sell some bread?”

  “I sure did. I thought it would be harder, somehow, but I guess you really just have to put a sign out, and people will come buy things.” Jane shook her head. “It’s probably not as crazy as it feels to me, but it still seems mad.”

  Allen nodded. “I couldn’t believe it the first time someone bought something from me. It was an axehead. I thought it would never sell. There were a thousand little flaws with it, real ones that I could see.”

  “So why did it sell?”

  “The man needed an axehead. I had one. It was that simple to him.”

  Allen took several minutes to connect components to each other by pounding in dowels and nails , then moved on to more delicate screws to attach metal hardware. The cabinet quickly took shape, occupying a long, low strip of wall just under Jane’s biggest front window. It contained plenty of different alcoves for orders of various sizes, all covered with swinging doors meant to keep out wind and rain.

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  Jane started loading it up as the doors were attached, using chalk to label each one with the customer’s name.

  “What’s this big compartment for?” she asked, pointing.

  “That’s for you, for ingredient deliveries. You won’t want to leave things in there forever, but it should take a sack of flour and a few other items, at least.”

  By the time Allen was truly finished, every dinner hold in Jane’s shop was accounted for, ready for pickup without any more work on her end.

  “It’s amazing, Allen.” Jane gazed at the beautiful, functional cabinet for a long moment, then turned to its maker. “Thank you. You officially get free bread for life. As much as you want.”

  “That’s a dangerous thing to tell a working man,” he warned. “But sure. Could I get some bread and cookies to go?”

  Jane gave him almost everything she had left, sparing only a few items for any last-minute customers and a piece of keln for her own dinner. She wanted to take the evening pretty easy today, after her aunt's magic work was done, of course. A little bread would go a long way towards simplifying meal prep.

  “Are you staying?” she asked. “I could make you some tea.”

  “No, I can’t. It turns out when you start dedicating a lot of your time to something besides work, you get behind on your work.” Allen grinned as he drew a little closer to her. “Guess whose fault that is.”

  What happened next was an accident. At least, Jane would later tell herself that it was.

  She had kissed him on the cheek before, and he had kissed her on the top of the head, but that was it. Amidst all the handholding and walking-very-close-to-each-other-indeed displays of affection, there had been a certain restrained slowness that both of them had enforced.

  Today, though, she went to kiss him on one cheek while he went to kiss her on the other. In the confusion, things lined up in a way neither of them had intended.

  It was just a brush of the lips. Jane might have shaken it off if her body hadn’t reflexively pushed her slightly onto her toes, digging into the contact with more force than she had known she wanted. Allen’s arms were suddenly around her waist, and she could feel all the mutually-enforced slowness melt away.

  I’m losing track of time. And space. And… shush, Jane. Just enjoy things. Wow.

  When they finally broke apart, both of them were flushed.

  “Neat.”

  Jane we do not say neat when we kiss Allen he’s going to think you are a weirdo he probably already does who says neat when they kiss…

  “Really neat,” Allen agreed. “Can we do that all the time?”

  “Probably.” Jane sat down on a stool, still trying to convince her knees that they shouldn’t betray her over just one kiss. “I don’t see who is stopping us.”

  “I think I need to leave for work.” Allen paused. “Or…”

  The unspoken was that they would kiss all afternoon, and neither of them would get their work done, and they both might die of increased blood flow to their cheeks. Jane knew, because she had already thought of the same problems.

  “Yes. Go. Please. I’ll see you soon?”

  “As soon as possible.” Allen’s fingers brushed his own lips, as if exploring the memory. “Promise.”

  The customers were merciful. After Allen left, Jane had a full five-minute reprieve before someone came to her door looking for bread. She recovered in time to help them, hoping she looked a little less disheveled and dazed than she felt.

  When the next half-hour went by without customers, Jane judged that she was done for the day. She doffed her apron, slapped her dress to get the bulk of the excess flour out, and hit her own cheeks lightly to try to knock some sense into herself. She had things to do that weren’t going to do themselves, and she would need to be awake for them.

  Closing and locking the door to her shop, she pinned a note to the wood that let folks know where their dinner holds could be found. Then it was off to the docks to find more and better water to look at.

  Her customers had been helpful on that front. When she’d asked, they’d explained that docks like the ones near her house were common, but usually only served one or two fishing boats. That meant she would always have access to markets selling fresh fish, but it also meant that any craft launching from these docks were the kind that left early in the morning, stayed out all day, and were filled with the smells of a particular wet, dirty kind of work.

  For what she had in mind, there were a few bigger docks that served more vessels of greater variety. A ten-minute walk took her to the closest of these, where she found several long piers jutting far out into the water. She was reassured to see dozens of boats of all different sizes and shapes moored to these piers. The only problem she now faced was figuring out which of the endless rainbow of planks, masts, and oars was right for her needs.

  “You look confused.” A younger boy carrying a surprisingly large box stopped beside Jane and looked up at her face. “First time to the docks?”

  “Yes, actually,” Jane confessed. She looked out at the boats in consternation. “I never had to charter a boat before. How does one go about picking what they need?”

  The boy set down his box momentarily. “What do you need? Fishing? Cargo?”

  “No, it’s not like that. I need a boat to take me across and around the lake several times, then right back here. It’s not like I’m doing work. I just want to get to know the lake.”

  The boy nodded, then jolted Jane almost out of her hide when he suddenly started yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “Pleasure cruise! One passenger! Two or three hours!”

  Every head on the docks snapped up. Then, almost without exception, they lowered back to their work. A few kept their focus on Jane, but only one of the apparent captains actually approached her.

  “Frank?” Jane stammered, surprised to see the first neighbor who had brought her food on her first night in Glenfall. “Shouldn’t you be fishing?”

  “I should, but I didn’t much feel like it today. I’m just tarring and repairing the ship me and the wife use when we go out for fun. I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

  “Likewise. I wouldn’t have known you were here if not for…” Jane looked down to find the boy was gone, back to whatever manual labor he kept himself busy with. “For that boy.”

  “He’s our barker. We all toss him a few coins every now and again for it. He’s loud, but you can’t deny the efficiency. You need to take a pleasure cruise, then?”

  “Something like that. I’m curious about the lake. I want to cover as much distance of it as I can. Back and forth, several times.”

  “Well, my boat is the right one, then. It’s faster than most, being built for just two. We can leave right now, if you want.”

  “Really? Just like that?” Jane checked herself to see if she was missing anything she needed for the next few hours, but her bag contained everything it was supposed to. “Sure. Let’s do it.”