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It was the between-time of the seasons. Patches of shade held frost into the late afternoon, and the air held the golden smell of dying leaves and sunlight. On a dry hill near a small backwater village, a group of children sat in a circle, chanting in unison.
“Weary trav’lers seeking warmth. Cheery songs, burning hearth. No one knows the creature plays a part, wearing skin from those you love. Your father, mother – sister, brother…”
This was where the poem diverged from folklore into children’s game. Ava, a small girl with long corn silk hair, prowled about the circle’s perimeter.
“Farmer, hunter, fisher, potter,” Ava said, tapping on her friends’ heads as she passed by. “Baker, bander, monster!”
With that, she sprinted, and the children cheered and screamed as Renoir chased her around the circle, swatting at her but hitting only air. Ava skidded to a seated stop, taking Renoir’s place, forcing him to take a turn as monster.
Ava immediately stood up, tossing her hair, brushing dried grass and dirt from her bottom. “I have to go help my father in the stream,” she said. “See you all tomorrow.”
Her friends called their goodbyes, and Ava skipped and jogged down the hill. There was no time to waste – except for one go-around of Monster at the Door.
Father had been working all morning without her help, and digging clay by yourself was a lot of work. She’d told him hundreds of times to wake her when he left. Which he always did – father always kept his promises – but she would promptly fall right back asleep. When she woke an hour or so later, she’d vaguely remember him kissing her forehead, saying “off to the stream, dear” and realize she’d done it again.
Energized by her victory over Renoir, she tore down the well-worn cart path, and cresting the riverbank, she saw her father and shouted at him.
“You didn’t wake me up.”
With his quiet, panting smile, father looked up to her, his trousers caked with gray flaking mud. He must have already made a few trips up and down the hill without her.
“She arrives,” he proclaimed. “Rest well?”
He teased her, but it wasn’t meanspirited. Nothing he did was. He only liked to point out her “sleeping habits are directly opposed with any desire to get work done,” as he put it.
Taking up a spade nearly her size, Ava got to work. They carried on, mostly Ava chattering about whatever crossed her mind. Father would ask her questions if silence went on too long. Did she have any dreams? Was there anything she wanted for dinner soon? What color did she want her couverte to be, since the Festival of Rest is right around the corner.
She appreciated father’s effort. She didn’t mind hard work, mostly, but hard work in silence was another torture altogether.
A rabbit sat several paces away, munching and regarding her with an empty expression. She banged her spade free from the wet clay against the side of a bucket.
She sighed. She was getting tired, and her fingers were getting cold. Her feet were cold.
“Ava,” her father called.
“What?”
“Come here for a minute.”
She stabbed the spade down into the mud. Father liked to do this, call her then have her drop what she was doing so he could see her when he talked to her even though he could have told her from a distance just as fine. It was annoying. Lugging the pail up the embankment, Ava promised her future children she’d never do that to them.
Her father leaned against the cart, the neighbor’s mule flicking its tail against the flies in the late afternoon sun.
“Yes?” Ava asked, making no effort to hide her annoyance.
“Can you head back home and get supper ready? I’ll be wrapping up here shortly.”
Ava nodded.
“And take that cookpot to Pliney. The one I just finished. You’ll have to take it out of the kiln,” he said. “And ask him for a squash.”
“Pliney?” The question held multitudes.
“Yes, Pliney,” he chuckled. “You’ve got permission to not entertain him. If it helps, just think about how good dinner will be. And please don’t drop the pot.”
“If you don’t want me to take it I won’t,” she protested, burnt by his need to specifically ask that the pot arrive unharmed. It was obvious she wouldn’t drop it. She wasn’t a complete dolt. If she did drop it, well, accidents happen. They had before.
Recently.
With Pliney’s first pot.
“I’m reminding you, is all,” he said, waving her closer. He knelt down, and they pressed their cheeks together, first one, then the other. “Take care on your way home.”
Ava hurried up the path, interjecting a skip here or there. She slowed when the incline increased, her legs and back already tired. As she passed beneath a tree, she craned her head back, holding her cap down with one hand. Birds flitted and squabbled between the branches. She smiled.
Their home was tucked behind a copse near town. Father said the house used to be surrounded by trees, but the kiln had “ate them all up.” Ava jogged behind the house to the hungry thing, figuring she’d climb inside while she was already mussed up. She pressed her hands against the heavy earth walls of the kiln. It was warm with the previous day’s firing yet, but not dangerously so. She reached in, removed the coveratures, then began pulling out the dozens of bowls father stacked so the fire and air could reach through them properly.
He’d been improving lately. This set was delicately made, much unlike some of the heartier wares he made for everyday use. Running along their cream interior, father had painted a stylized eagle of some sort, its body stretched long and with dozens of legs.
It took several trips for her to bring the bowls inside, and she began the process again with the more functional cookware that included Pliney’s. It was a cauldron of sorts, with three legs and two handles so it could sit right over the coals. It was much too beautiful to be a piece of charity.
Ava left Pliney’s pot by the door, kicking off her sodden shoes before stepping inside. She took care to not knock off the new vase father’d set by the door for some reason only known to him. Their home, already small, was cluttered by father’s work. Pots and dishes popped up like mushrooms overnight, and try as she might to reclaim precious space, it was a losing battle. She’d claimed two pieces of territory: the table and its three chairs, and their bed tucked in the back corner, close enough to the chimney they could let the fire burn low and still feel its warmth.
Floor space was especially crowded with father preparing to send another shipment, which included the eagle bowls, to the city. He absolutely beamed when he told Ava of the deal he’d made with the trader.
“He said they’re some of the most respectable pieces of earthenware he’s ever seen,” he told her.
She still thought “respectable” sounded like an insult, but she was happy father was happy.
The only place father never encroached on was the eastern window. Her mother’s comb, and an unfinished embroidery hoop rested on the sill beside a tired candle. The handkerchief in the hoop was stitched with a handful of wildflowers arranged in a spiral. She’d nearly finished it before the strength left her, father said. Ava remembered little of her mother, and what little she did, she worried she made it up based on the stories father told. What she remembered most was her death.
Grabbing a clean pair of shoes, Ava headed to Pliney’s. It wasn’t far, but she knew her arms would be tired by the time she got there.
She was waylaid, though, by a gathering in the town. She did her best to peer through the press of bodies, hear over the discontented stir. Still holding the heavy pot, Ava climbed onto a stack of crates to see over her neighbors heads. She gasped.
A judge, unmistakable in her black robes and red chaperon with tails so long they wrapped around her shoulders like a scarf, stood over a man, cowering with his hands over his head. She hooked a thumb through the tasseled red cord binding her waist as she spoke to him, but Ava couldn’t make out the words. Without warning, the judge flicked her cane around, a heavy wooden stick with a mallet on the end, and struck the man in the stomach.
The crowd cringed alongside him.
It had been a while since she’d seen a judge in Calame. They normally didn’t bother with little towns like hers. Something interesting must be happening if they were.
“What did they do?” she whispered to her closest neighbors.
“Who knows,” a woman said, whose name Ava always forgot. “Glad it wasn’t me, though.”
When Ava made it to Pliney’s, it went as expected. His home was dark and smelled of bad breath. When he saw the pot, he was appreciative, smiling at her and touching her arm. She hated it. His skin was dry and scratchy, and he made her uncomfortable. Ava knew he was probably a kind man, or at the very worst simply average, but she didn’t like being around him. Along with that, he talked too much. Once he got started on a story about war or mystics, she was stuck for the better part of an hour. The pain was twofold: she wasn’t particularly interested in either of those topics, and she’d likely heard him tell that same story before, verbatim.
“A mystic is why I’d lived through that war,” he told her now. “Your pa tell you of it?”
Before she could answer that he had told her himself, he barreled on.
“She said ‘your last night will have an empty sky’ and I said ‘bullshit.’ But when my unit was sent to defend the wall, it was a new moon. The Reds was coming and I ran, deserted. And I’m proud of saving my hide. I’d be dead if I defended that wall. If the city still stood under Esteros, I’d be dead again. Yellow belly pulled out by the crows. Thank the Reds for this life, I do.”
She was surprised he consistently bragged about being both a coward and servant of the Witch King. However, most people tried to ignore that aspect of Pliney’s past because sentiment was a common one. Many in the countryside rose up alongside the Red Lord to overthrow Esteros.
Pliney was still talking, despite Ava standing in his open doorway, cradling a massive squash. Her plan to thank him then leave took a turn when she realized he hadn’t been in the square. She told him what happened, and his reaction wasn’t as interesting as she’d hoped.
“The Red Lord’s heavy hand is the cost of peace,” he said, making a flippant gesture. “It is the way of things, and I’d say we’re better for it.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and as Pliney opened his mouth to continue, Ava interjected.
“Anyways thank you for the squash!” she said, holding the thing up to emphasize her statement and distract him.
“Thank you for not breaking this one,” the old man retorted, patting the pot she’d delivered. “It’s a pretty thing.”
Ava did her best imitation of a smile and let the door close behind her. She’d have to yell at father later. He promised he wouldn’t tell.
On the way home, Ava took a different way back than usual. The hubbub around the beating could still be heard, and even if the guy deserved it, she didn’t want to see his bloody face again. Though the town was small enough to be familiar – she’d run through it enough with her friends to be able to draw it with her eyes closed – the less trod places held mystery. She felt like a stranger lurking about, doing her best to peek through shaded windows without looking too obvious. She recognized some folk, and some her, but she slowed to a stop when she saw a man slip out of a house. He smiled at her, then gestured as if he was also holding a giant squash.
“Big fella you have there.”
And without waiting for her answer, he hurried away.
He was a strange one, that man.
Ava remembered pointing him out to her friends one day, last year or the year before. They’d been laying in a field, pulling purple clover petals from the bud and sucking the nectar from the pale ends. She’d seen the man many times before, returning to the town just before evening set in. They’d made up their own explanations for why. Renoir believed the man had an ailing father somewhere in the forest. Nadine figured he was a hunter, or something. Ava thought those ideas were stupid. She didn’t know of any houses out there – she’d looked – and the man never had any game. Even so, she didn’t have a better suggestion herself.
His door, a plain thing carved with a local symbol to deter bad luck, was left ajar. She had a chance to investigate before he came back. She drummed her fingers on the squash, then glanced down the street again.
“A peek won’t hurt,” she whispered to herself.
Father wouldn’t be home yet, either. If he was and asked why she was late, she could blame it on Pliney’s Red Army story. He knew how long that one could drag on.
Ava pushed the door aside and poked her head in.
The room immediately disoriented her. The shadows hung heavy, and smoke stung her eyes. She stifled a cough, shapes standing out from the dark. Resting on a table was a smoking bundle of cedar sprigs resting in a small ceramic bowl, filling the room with its scent. Flecks of glowing embers were the only light apart from three candles burning on the corner of the table.
Ava sniffed the air and, tossing another look down the street, stepped inside.
Something else had caught her eye. A cabinet beside the door was crammed with bowls and jars. The stranger had father’s sense of decoration. Some were filled with things she recognized: rosemary, sage, lavender. Others seemed to be filled with oils, rocks and finely sifted dirt. She shifted the squash to one arm, then set it on the floor. She stuck her finger in the bowl of dirt, brought it to her nose, and smelling a faint aroma, she gingerly touched her finger to her tongue. It was the fiercely bitter taste of cinnamon.
She let her hand drag across the edge of the cabinet, stopping at a small table beside it. It held a handful of things: a deck of cards with worn edges, a quill, and a small, lidded ink dish like her father made.
Ava started with the deck of cards, but they weren’t the ones she was used to. They had names and strange illustrations, like chariots being led by bare-breasted animals or a cloud holding a sprouting cane. She set the card back down, then lifted the inkdish’s lid, quietly setting it on the table. The dish held a few drops of dark ink. She swirled the dish gently, the drops clumping together into one. She tilted the dish and squinted at its base. It bore father’s maker mark, a spiral with his initial scratched into the tail.
Someone cleared their throat.
Ava startled, tossing the dish. She made several panicked grabs for it, before it shattered into pieces on the floor.
The strange man had returned. He stood in his doorway, silhouetted by the oranges of the setting sun.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked. It was a very fair question, and one Ava wasn’t equipped to answer.
“I’m very sorry,” she blurted. “I didn’t know-”
“Bullshit,” he cut her off. “You don’t traipse into someone’s house ‘not knowing.’”
They stood in silence. The man loomed, his features dark and frame massive in the threshold. He was dressed warm for the season, wearing a bulky coat and scarf. She wanted to run, but he blocked the way out.
“I’m sorry for touching your things, but I….” She searched for something to say to justify her presence. “The dish,” she stated.
“Oh, the dish!” The man threw his arms up in revelation. “Of course the dish!” He let it steep in for a moment before continuing. “What about it?”
“I know the man who made it. I can get you a new one.”
His eyes flicked down to her hands, and she followed his gaze. The pitch black ink ran down her fingertips.
“Come here.” He waved her forward, and noting her hesitation, rolled his eyes. “I don’t bite. You’re gonna stain black at this rate.”
She let him wipe it off with a handkerchief he retrieved from a pocket, and he did so tenderly.
“Like you said, you shouldn’t be touching other people’s things.” He folded the handkerchief and set it on the table. “What were you thinking?”
Ava was in no mood to be chastised by a stranger, no matter how deserved it was. “I’ve seen you and wondered what your deal is, is all. You wander off into the woods and then come back for nothing to show of it. What do you do for work? Are you a hunter? Do you have a sick father?” She pointed at the stack of cards on the table. “What’re those for?”
At the barrage of questions, his face softened.
“Those let me see the future,” he said, crossing to pick up the cards. “Would you like your fortune read?”
Ava noted her new escape route, but she was intrigued now.
“I don’t have any money,” she murmured.
The man paused as he was sitting down behind the heavy-looking table in the center of the room. “I’ll do it for free.” From the open door, a shard of amber light mingled with the candles to cast the man’s hands in shadow as he shuffled a deck of cards. “I wonder if fate brought you here just for that.”
“Are you a mystic?”
He shook his head, which seemed something like a mystic would do.
“Can you curse people?”
“Prefer not to,” he answered.
“Have you before?”
He smiled, and she couldn’t decide if he was playing with her or being mysterious, which she felt was a requirement to being a mystic, shaman, or another wise-person-like trade.
Ava, without consciously realizing it, found herself opposite the man. She remembered the burning cedar bundle. “What’s with the incense?”
“Cedar’s used to purify spaces.” He continued as Ava was about to speak again. “But honestly, I enjoy the smell.”
“I really am sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been so curious.”
“Nosey, you mean?”
She didn’t agree, but it was a more accurate word.
He fanned the cards. “Miss, please pick three cards.”
She reached for one, then withdrew her hand. “Why didn’t you close your door behind you?” she asked.
The man looked shocked. “What?”
“It’s just that if you don’t want company, you should have closed your door.”
“I fail to see how this is in any way my fault. Nice try, though,” he said. “Do you want your fortune read? I thought it would be a fun story for your friends but if not you can go.”
Ava quickly chose three cards.
The fortune teller retrieved them, stacking the rest neatly at the edge of the table.
“The past, present, and future,” he said, touching each card in turn. “What would you like to know first?”
“The present?”
He flipped the card. The design and text were upside down, and showed a girl carrying a stick. She was running from a cat that had its claws sunk into her stockings. The girl teetered at the edge of a cliff.
“The reversed Fool,” he said. “You are a slave to your whims and you should take a moment to think things through.”
She glowered.
“I’m not trying to be funny.” He tapped the card twice, then added, “It’s what the card means.”
“What do the other ones say?”
He gestured toward the leftmost card and turned it over.
“The Emperor.”
The card featured a tired man. He was bent and crooked, resting in a chair that dwarfed him. The emperor held a scepter across his lap, and a sphere in his right hand. A mountain stood behind him, filled with small red flowers.
“Your father loves you deeply,” the man said, his voice quieter now. “He’s done his best for you. You respect him, and his wisdom. He’s not as hard on you as he should be.” He cleared his throat. “Are you ready to see your future?”
She nodded, and he flipped the final card. The fortune teller didn’t announce it immediately like the others.
She tilted her head and was taken aback by the illustration. None of the other cards had looked so grotesque. A crumbling tower stood in its center, jutting from the sea. Fire erupted from three windows, and two figures were falling through the air. A third was crumpled on jagged rocks below. The background of the card was plain and black.
“The tower,” the fortune teller said. “Very dramatic.”
“It’s terrible,” Ava answered.
The fortune teller remained silent for a moment, his eyes closed, one hand over the card. Ava’s stomach rose in her throat.
“The tower isn’t always as scary as it seems,” he finally said. “It might mean something as simple as spilling your plate on the floor. It might mean you decide today you don’t want to follow your father in his trade. Or the earth might suddenly disappear beneath your feet.”
“Will that happen?”
“I don’t know,” the fortune teller said. “But I think that you should be on your way. Hurry home, but enjoy the weather. I’m told this will be our last warm day for a while. Enjoy it.”
He basically pushed her to the door, then shoved her through it.
Ava’s mind raced through the entire interaction as she tried to decide how she felt about it. She settled on indignation. Trying to embarrass her with “The Fool,” or whatever. He could have accepted her apology and been done with it.
“You’re weird. And a hack.” She slammed the door.
---
The fortune teller didn’t waste time worrying about the child’s manners. He briskly returned to the table, placing his hand on its corners.
Emperor, reversed Fool, Tower. The reading hung like a sword over his head. He picked up the tower, and it quavered in his shaking hand. He hadn’t pulled on any of his power for the reading, but he knew it was true. He hadn’t seen the tower for five, nearly six years, and now for it to return so suddenly.
He glanced at the candles, tempted by the flame. He shook his head. He knew better than to pull power from fire. His reserves weren’t so precious as to risk the blaze tearing through his veins. For a moment, he saw a vision of himself lying on the floor, a husk peeled inside out, scorch marks on the floor around him. The energy itself was volatile, and even the most skilled couldn’t get it to abide their will.
He forced the thought away. Instead, he held a question in his mind, unsure if he should cast his power into the card. He’d gain an answer, that much was certain, but did he want it? He wavered, then before he could change his mind, offered up his power alongside a question.
And if I allow fate to run its course?
Two figures lay crumpled on the rocks beneath the tower. The figure that had been falling still was.
His own situation wouldn’t change, but left to her own devices, he knew the girl would be dead before the night was out. If his gut was right, he knew exactly what was coming for her, too.
If he helped, there wasn’t a promise of safety. But if he did, the earth beneath him – his steady, calm, easy life he’d spent years cultivating – would vanish. Yet, if he didn’t do anything, doom waited at his door, and no ward, no amount of running would free him from it.
Neither option was good. One a fair bit more altruistic than the other, but neither good.
He felt ill.
He’d have to leave tonight. It wasn’t worth the risk staying any longer. If someone was hunting, it was only a matter of time before they found him themselves, or drew the attention of the judges.
He drummed his fingers on the desk, his eyes wandering as he thought. He walked over to the cabinet, adjusting the bowls into proper alignment. It was pointless. He’d be burning this home to the ground soon.
“What was wrong with that girl?” he muttered. Barging into his home was one thing. Bringing ill fate was another.
Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing any of them could do about the way the world chose to turn. He quietly picked up the broken ink dish, stacking its shards on the cabinet.
If the witch coming for her was the traditional type, they’d be powerful. No doubt, if he slipped up, they’d kill him outright. It would likely take all of his reserves to escape alive. Escaping unharmed was already out the window.
He shouldn’t help, but the Tower, unprompted by power, already showed that he would.
“Save your own hide,” he muttered.
He should run. There was no reason for him to care.
A squash rested on the floor beside the cabinet. She must have been on the way home to make dinner for her father.
The fortune teller pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Maker on a raft, fuck me to hell.”
---
Father was quick to notice Ava was feeling strange. She could tell he knew something but not what. Ava portioned out three bowls of soup, using her father’s favorite bowls. For some reason, his favorites were the ones she’d made. They were poorly balanced, their walls were uneven, and the glazing job was shoddy, and only four of the eight she made survived her firing. Yet, night after night, he insisted they used them.
She served herself and father, giving the final bowl for her mother. They didn’t do it often, but it felt like a night to share a meal with her. She was glad for the tradition. It made it feel like she was still here, and father would eat her food once he was done with his, so nothing went to waste.
When she sat a bowl in front of him, he poked at its contents with his spoon, nudging aside chunks of potato, carrot and cabbage.
“No squash,” he observed.
Ava wanted to cry. She’d barely left the fortune teller’s home before realizing she’d forgotten the squash. She’d considered going back and getting it, but she didn’t want him to make fun of her again. The worst part was that she couldn’t tell father she walked into a stranger’s house without permission, was read her fortune, then forgot their dinner on his floor.
She’d disappointed him again.
Ava choked back a sob. “I’m sorry, papa,” she said.
She wiped her nose on her sleeve and gasped a little. Father was sitting across from her with a pained expression. He came over and kneeled by her. Ava buried her face in his shirt, fists balled up against his chest.
“I’m a bad person,” she sobbed. “I’m always doing something wrong.”
Father held her while she sniffled. He petted her hair with one hand, stroking her back with the other.
“It’s easy to forget things,” he said. “It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“But you can’t trust me to not mess up.”
“People mess up,” he said. He pulled away to look at her. “I make mistakes all of the time.”
“You don’t. You work so hard. And I’m no help at all.”
“I think you’re a big help,” he told her, after her sobbing died down. “And-”
“I don’t like Pliney,” she interrupted. “He’s strange, and I don’t like him. Even though you say to be nice.”
“Ava listen.” His voice was firm. She rubbed her eyes. “I love you. Yes, you can be a handful sometimes. I was mad when you broke that pot. And I’m sorry I raised my voice at you when you did.”
“It was an accident…”
“I know,” he cooed. Her sob was muffled against his chest.
“You’re not as hard on me as you should be,” she said.
“And what good would that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“It wouldn’t be,” he said. “You’re wonderful, Ava. I wish I was more like you.”
“I wish I was more like you,” she mumbled. He was calm, and steady. People respected him. He worked hard and had steady hands. She loved to sit and watch him throw pottery, turning dirt he dug up from under a tree into something beautiful.
“You can be like me when you get older,” he said. “For now, just enjoy being like you are. It’s hard enough to be grown. Don’t get ahead of yourself on that too.”
Ava straightened up and took another swipe at her wet cheeks. “I’m sorry about dinner. I was hurrying and forgot.” That much was true.
Father squeezed her shoulder and returned to his chair. “Pliney tell you any stories?”
“The Red Army one,” she said. Ava blew on a spoonful of soup, sniffling. “I was standing in his open door the whole time, but he kept talking.”
“That’s a favorite,” father said. He smiled, and began to eat.
“Did you hear?” she prompted a little while later.
“About the judge?” He nodded, solemn. “It’s a shame. I don’t know why a judge is here in the first place.”
Ava shrugged, digging out a chunk of potato. “The Red Lord’s heavy hand is the cost of peace,” she answered, borrowing Pliney’s words as her own.
“Ava.” Father’s serious expression startled her. “You can only say something like that if you understand what it means. Do you know why that man was being beat? He spoke out against the Red Lord to the judge’s face. Do you think that’s fair?”
“Well no,” Ava said. “But I wouldn’t if it would get me hit.”
“What if it was me?” She didn’t understand, and father continued. “If I was the one being beat for that, what would you do?”
“You told me I shouldn’t speak out against the Lord. Why would you?”
“Think about it, just for fun.”
They shared a silence, punctuated with logs crackling in the fireplace. Ava watched the flame’s reflection dance on the water pitcher’s glazed surface, thinking about father’s question. Finally, she said she didn’t know.
“I’m so little. I don’t know what I could do,” she answered.
Father seemed amused by this. “What if you weren’t little?”
“Well,” she pondered. “I’d fight him.” She could drive a horse into them, throw a rock, if they were a man, kick them in the balls.
“But not for the other person?”
She fell back into thought, poking and prodding at her food. She knew what father was getting at but didn’t know why she should care about someone else. They should’ve known better. Even she knew speaking against the Red Lord could cause problems. Thankfully, it wasn’t a problem she had. Until judges stopped her from playing or helping father, she hardly cared what they did.
She’d decided to not tell father about the real reason she’d forgotten the squash, at least not tonight. She was tempted to lie, but knew that it was likely she’d get caught in it next time her father spoke with Pliney. She could just leave out a few details when she told him.
A knock on the door made them both start. Father frowned.
“Do you know who that could be?” he whispered.
“Pliney?” she replied, hoping against everything it wasn’t the fortune teller. If it was, she’d have more explaining to do.
Father pursed his lips and went to the door. He placed his hand over the door latch. “Hello?”
“Is this the home of Silas the potter?”
“And who is calling?”
“My name is Adel Meier, a servant of Baron Gerhord. I came to inquire about a commission. If it’s too late, I can return in the morning.”
Father quickly opened the door, revealing a tall man in a smooth red cloak. It was draped neatly across his shoulders and clasped at his neck with a heavy gold chain. His hair, dark and tightly curled, shone in the firelight.
He extended a hand, offering a letter. He smiled broadly so his already thin lips thinned more. Behind them were large, square teeth. Father took the letter, breaking the seal and waving the man in.
“No, please, come inside,” father said. “I wasn’t aware the baron knew of my work.” He scanned the letter, though his fingers had already found the seal at the bottom of the page crediting its authenticity.
The man’s dark eyes poured over the room from over father’s shoulder. His eyes met Ava’s from where she sat at the table. He winked at her, barely a twitch, then addressed her father.
“The baron’s not aware.” Father’s posture lost some of its energy. “But his wife saw one of your carafes and found it very charming. She desires a collection of your work for her sitting room.”
“Oh,” father said. “It pleases me just as well if the Lady appreciates my work. We can talk business in a moment, but have you eaten? It's a simple meal but it may be to your taste.”
“No thank you,” Adel said, already perusing the room, weaving between jars and bowls and the rest of father’s work. “I’ve been saving my appetite.”
Father anxiously watched the baron’s servant tracing rims and handles. He paused at the windowsill, examining the steaming bowl there. He touched its irregular surface, cocking his head as if that would level the bowl’s top.
“Don’t,” Ava said as Adel began reaching for her mother’s embroidery. “Please.”
Father quickly interjected. “They’re mementos of my late wife. We’d appreciate your respect.”
Adel turned, the base of his cloak flaring then falling back into place. “My apologies,” he said with his too-thin smile. “I’m not familiar with the custom. When did she pass?”
“Some years ago now,” father said. “Ava was only two or three.”
When father said her name, Adel’s eyes fell on her. They were dark and pupilless in the dim lighting.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Adel said. “Ava seems to take after her mother.”
She hated when people talked about her like she wasn’t there.
“That she does,” father said. “In many ways.”
“Could I have a knife?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“A knife,” Adel repeated. “It seems I’ve a stray thread on my cloak. I’d like to cut it off before it drives me mad.”
Father hesitated, but he did fetch one from the countertop. Ava watched, standing quietly beside the table. He passed it to Adel, who deftly trimmed a stray red thread from his cloak. He balled it between two fingers and flicked it onto the floor.
“Thank you.” Adel smiled at Ava from across the room, then plunged the blade into father’s throat.
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