Roses And Steel

The flour in my hands is already gone before I reach the cottage door.

Not because I’m clumsy-because the world in Mellow is hungry, and hungry things don’t wait for anyone to be careful. I tug the sack higher on my shoulder, grit grinding under my boots as the muddy lane sucks at my heels. Behind me, the market is loud with coin and laughter, with the kind of music that pretends winter isn’t coming. Ahead, the woods press close enough that the air smells like wet leaves and cold iron.

Lottie would’ve mocked my walk, if she’d been alive to do it. She’d say I moved like a cat pretending it wasn’t stalking. That thought hits me hard enough that I almost drop the sack when a gust off the fields sends my hair whipping across my eyes. I blink it away and force myself to breathe through the ache.

The orphans are waiting. They always are, even when I’m late, even when I’ve promised I’ll be back before the last lantern is lit. Tonight I’m not late. Tonight I’m early enough to keep them fed, to keep the cottage warm, to keep the sanctuary mine for a little longer.

A stone cough sounds from inside-Lottie’s little shadow, no taller than my ribs, clearing his throat like he’s trying to be brave. I push the door open with my shoulder, and the smell of damp wool and yesterday’s stew wraps around me immediately. Heat from the hearth bumps my face, and the children’s chatter rises like birds startled from a branch.

“Maeve!” Lottie’s name never leaves my mouth anymore. I don’t say it. I don’t let myself. But the way they look at me-wide-eyed, trusting, furious at the world for being bigger than them-feels like a continuation.

I set the sack down and kneel, fingers already moving to measure what I stole: enough bread to stretch, enough flour to thicken the broth. I break a thin crust of something stale and let it crumble in my palm for the smallest ones who know how to steal a piece without getting caught.

“Careful,” I mutter, because the cottage rules are mostly about surviving my temper. “If you eat like you’re starving, you’ll still be starving. If you eat like you’re alive, maybe you’ll taste it.”

The oldest girl-Lottie’s closest thing, though nothing replaces the dead-snorts. “You’re the only one who eats like you’re alive.”

I almost smile. Almost. Instead I wipe flour off my nose with the back of my wrist, leaving a pale smear that makes me look like a ghost that forgot to go back. “Someone has to keep the living from getting boring.”

Their laughter is soft, but it makes my chest loosen. For a heartbeat, I forget the cold edge of the outside lane and the way my knuckles still ache from the theft. For a heartbeat, the cottage is just a cottage.

Then the sound outside changes.

It’s not the market. It’s not the scrape of carts or the distant clop of a horse. It’s the sharper noise of boots that don’t belong to farmers-boots that land with purpose, with weight, with the certainty that someone will move out of their way.

My fingers freeze mid-knead.

One of the boys goes still too, eyes darting to my face. “Maeve?”

I straighten slowly, trying to look like I’m not afraid. Trying to look like I’m just annoyed. I’ve been both those things plenty of times. Fear is a third option I don’t allow.

“Stay inside,” I tell them. My voice is firm enough that it carries. “No one opens this door. No one answers anyone.”

I don’t wait for agreement. I grab the knife I pretend is for cutting bread and not for cutting throats, slide it into my belt where my fingers can find it even in the dark, and slip toward the window. The glass is cloudy with old smoke, but the street beyond is clear enough.

A group of men in Sterling livery stands in the lane like they’ve been planted there. Their cloaks are too clean. Their hands are too steady. Even from here I can hear the faint jingle of metal at their belts-courtly blades, not the rough knives most people in Mellow can afford.

And among them, one man holds a scroll case like it’s a weapon.

My stomach turns over. I haven’t stolen from Sterling itself in weeks. Not directly. Not where their eyes could follow.

Unless someone’s been watching.

Unless Dilan has been followed.

The name hits like a slap. Dilan-my older wanderer mentor, my maker of maps and manners when I had no one else to teach me how to survive. Dilan-who vanished from the world like a rumor you can’t quite catch. Dilan-who is somehow connected to a missing-strategist rumor that has been crawling under Sterling’s prosperity like mold under bread.

I press my forehead to the window’s cold edge and taste iron in the air, as if the day has already bled into the next.

A familiar voice cuts through the lane.

“-Cottage belongs to Maeve Hayes,” Sam says, and my body reacts before my mind can. Of course it’s Sam. Of course the universe chooses the worst possible timing.

He’s tall even in the dim light, shoulders squared like he’s been trained to face blades instead of words....