Chapter 39: Holding Hands Was Not in the Budget

Thorne looked at her open palm, then at her face, giving her time to change her mind. Dove curled her fingers toward him before embarrassment could turn the gesture into an extremely awkward hand exercise.

He placed his hand in hers without closing it tightly. She chose the grip herself, feeling the roughness of his palm and the careful way he kept his thumb away from the place he had hurt before. Her heartbeat sped up for reasons she understood perfectly well and did not want announced by anybody with a notification panel.

"I’m leaving the trade table," she told Rusk. "He is coming because I asked him. If you need another story, write one without my name."

They walked back through the covered bay with the price board under Thorne’s other arm. He released her hand when she needed to open the stall, and the lack of resistance made her want to take it again later. That was such an irritating lesson for her body to learn that she nearly laughed.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I’m deciding whether to invoice the entire hall for wasting my time. It’s a complicated emotional process."

He waited beside the gate while she put the goods away. When she finished, she told him she had wanted to hold his hand. She did not let the sentence grow into a promise about tomorrow, and he did not ask it to.

She paid four Favor Coins to keep the last waxed sleeve for dry papers, ending Day Fifteen with twenty normal and twenty-five Favor. Both missions were complete, the sixty-normal-coin coat remained unbought, and the salt joined her personal food. Dove ate the cheese she had traded for earlier while it was still sound, rather than saving every pleasant thing until it became a science project.

Day Sixteen brought three small iron hooks. Two sales would earn ten normal coins; five new Favor Coins would unlock hand cream at eight normal coins and stretch clothing at ten for a cropped top or eight for a tennis skirt.

"A tennis skirt," Dove repeated. "Perfect. I’ll serve directly into the glacier." Sprout called it a clearance shelf, which explained absolutely nothing she wanted explained.

She accepted the tasks and took her daily pool-water wash. The dress felt tighter across her chest after drying, and she loosened the lacing instead of skipping the habit that was helping her endure the drafts. Then Varek called her to the duty table. Thorne came separately after his shift, not as a witness to things he had not seen. Ash and Kael were already there, with the keeper close enough to answer questions about the shelf.

Varek had compared the strap with its matching piece on the cart. The cut sections fitted, and the second worker confirmed receiving it from Rusk after the spill. Rusk admitted replacing the inspection mark but said he had meant to correct an incomplete record.

"With my initials," Varek said.

Rusk looked toward Ash. "The load needed moving. We all knew the route."

"Knowing a route isn’t checking a lid," Dove said. "And it doesn’t explain the label on my shelf."

The keeper described seeing Rusk return through the common hall with an empty tin while Dove and Thorne were at the drain. The keeper had been carrying spare fittings back from maintenance. He had not seen the label placed, and he said so clearly.

Varek included the scent findings: Rusk had handled the shelf and tins, but neither scent established when the warning appeared.

Rusk’s jaw worked. "I left the warning. Somebody had to make people think before they put unknown things on their skin."

For a moment, Dove heard nothing beyond that admission. He had watched strangers buy from her, watched her count tiny gains, and decided fear was a tool he could use to take the trade for himself.

"And then you offered to sell those same goods through you," she said.

"With oversight," Rusk replied. "Somebody needs to be responsible for what comes into this hall."

"You were going to inspect every button personally? How brave. Did the thread threaten you too?"

Rusk blamed her past, her strange new stock, and the way men stopped listening when she looked at them. He did not admit cutting the strap. Varek kept that question open rather than treating one confession as proof of every suspicion.

Ash removed Rusk from solo deliveries and from any trade involving Dove. He ordered him to stay away from her counter while the remaining questions were checked. That was enough to stop the immediate interference, although it did not restore the customers she had lost.

"The cloth," Dove said before they moved on. "He left oil on something I owned. I want that recorded too."

Rusk admitted the tin had leaked when he set it down. Ash required him to provide a clean replacement cloth through stores, with the keeper checking it before delivery. Dove accepted that for this proven damage. She did not ask anybody to reopen the old soap theft or pretend they had finally solved it.

Thorne’s expression eased when she held her ground, and five Favor Coins from his pride brought that purse to thirty, completing the mission. Hand cream and the stretch-clothing shelf unlocked at their stated normal-coin prices. She did not buy it while Rusk was still talking.

Outside the duty area, Kael waited until she had space to breathe before asking whether she wanted the clinic bench. She said no, then thanked him for describing what he had heard. He accepted both answers without claiming that his testimony meant he now trusted every secret she kept.

Two men approached before lunch and bought one iron hook each, together paying with wrapped dried apple. The named target added ten normal coins, bringing that purse to thirty. She ate one piece after checking the wrapping and put the rest in her food tin.

She paid four Favor Coins to keep the third hook for her hanging washcloth, reducing that purse to twenty-six. Sprout marked it owned, which meant the same hook could not keep charging rent.

Thorne sat across the hall while she worked. She did not need him to keep Rusk away now; Varek’s order did that. Knowing he was there still made it easier to stop looking up at every cart.

Ash arrived when the hall thinned, keeping his hands off her counter. Dove waited for the apology he had earned the right to attempt and no guarantee she would accept.

Instead he looked toward Thorne and said, "Rusk lying doesn’t mean you’re telling us everything."