Chapter 43: She Was Not on the Cargo List

Dove folded the offer along its existing crease and put it inside her drawstring bag. Then she told Varek that she would attend any meeting where somebody planned to discuss moving her household.

"You can tell Hale I travel with the decision," she said. "It’s inconvenient, but so are the ears."

The guard agreed to pass on the message. Dove closed the stall with nine normal coins and thirty-two Favor Coins and slept with Thorne’s scarf folded beside her, trying not to think about how carefully his hand had rested against her back.

Day Eighteen offered four sealable storage pouches. Three sales earned twelve normal coins; six fresh Favor Coins unlocked a travel kettle priced at twenty-five normal coins. Dove accepted, then paid four Favor Coins to own the fourth pouch immediately, reducing that purse to twenty-eight. It would keep her salt and dried food dry, and buying it out early cleared its closing fee without counting it as a sale.

"You have developed suspicious timing," she told Sprout.

"Travel equipment was the next available category. Unlocking it does not require you to move."

"Good. I’d hate to discover my toaster had already accepted a job in another city."

She took her daily pool-water wash behind the tarp, dried carefully, and brushed her tail before opening. The sports top and skirt still fit, though she kept Thorne’s loaned coat closed over them. The fur still looked brighter than it had a week ago, and her hands stayed comfortable longer before she reached for the gloves. She recorded those changes without pretending she could measure a temperature in her skin.

The cold outside remained dangerous, and her new boots were not a license to wander into it alone.

A pair of visitors bought the three remaining storage pouches before the departure meeting, trading dried onions. The target paid twelve normal coins, bringing that purse to twenty-one. She added the onions to her food supplies and checked that the kettle remained locked because she had earned no qualifying Favor Coins yet that day.

The separation mattered. Selling goods had paid a reward. Being looked at across a room did not magically complete the other task.

Thorne arrived after the outer watch confirmed the road was passable with chains. He had changed into his heavier coat for a loading shift, but stopped at her counter long enough to ask whether she wanted him at the meeting.

Dove looked at the repaired canvas cover over her price board. "Yes. I want you there. I don’t want you answering for me."

"I can manage that."

"I’m serious. Even if I say something that makes everybody annoyed."

His mouth curved. "Then I should prepare for the whole meeting."

She smiled back, and six Favor Coins from his happiness brought that purse to thirty-four, completing the mission. The kettle unlocked at twenty-five normal coins, four more than she had. Her larger Favor balance could not buy it, and she told Sprout its two wallets were having a deeply annoying argument.

Sprout offered to show her the travel shelf. She told it to wait until she had survived the actual people arranging her luggage.

At the duty room beside the service bay, Ash stood over the road map with Hale, Varek, and Kael. The door stayed open, and Dove chose a chair where she could see the hall. Thorne took the place beside her only after she pointed to it.

Hale looked at them together, then at the scarf around her neck. "You’re comfortable with him now."

"I’m comfortable making my own seating arrangements," Dove said. "We can start there."

Ash watched her pull out the offer sheet and flatten it beneath her own hand. His expression gave her no reason to think the meeting would be friendly. She could see that he disliked Hale’s interest without assuming it meant he had begun to trust her.

Hale described Terminal’s staff rooms, heated corridors, and protected inner section for women and cubs. He spoke about supply runs and said her appearance would bring customers from every crew passing through the base.

Dove looked up from the page. "My goods would bring customers. My face is not a delivery service."

"It would be foolish to ignore an advantage," he replied.

"Then don’t ignore the part where I understand my own stock better than you do. I want the work discussed before my cheekbones."

Kael made a small sound that might have been amusement.

The healer had brought a wrapped meal for after his next treatment; new powers apparently came with old-fashioned lunch requirements. Ash looked toward him immediately, then seemed to catch himself and returned his attention to the offer. Dove noticed both movements and decided she was not responsible for whatever argument he was having with his own eyes.

She asked who controlled the room key, whether she could refuse customers, and whether trade access depended on accepting gifts from Terminal’s men. Hale said the key would be hers, customers could be refused, and gifts were separate. She asked him to add each answer to the written terms.

"You’re asking us to trust a supplier who won’t name her source," Ash said.

Dove faced him. "I’m asking you to read an agreement about goods, not marry my warehouse. You can keep checking what I sell. You don’t get every private thing about me because you dislike not knowing it."

His jaw tightened. There was no warm surrender in his face, no sudden belief because another man wanted her nearby. She had expected suspicion and found it exactly where he had left it.

Hale offered a trial visit before any permanent move. Dove asked whether that visit included permission to return on the same convoy. He glanced at the road map before saying the truck would not turn around solely for one passenger.

"Then it isn’t a small visit," she said. "It’s waiting at your base until you decide to travel again. Write it that way."

Thorne’s hand rested on his own knee beside her chair. He did not reach for her, but when she looked at him, his attention was already there. She knew he wanted her to stay. She also knew he had let her ask every question without punishing her for considering the answers.

That difference made her throat tighten more than the room or the door had.

Hale collected the offer page after she finished marking it. Then he turned toward Ash, leaving Dove with the sudden, familiar feeling of being the only person in a discussion who had been mistaken for an object.

"We’ve room in the truck and a place ready for her," he said. "Will you let us take Dove back to Terminal?"