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E 15 Voucherss

The hour between then and the sound of small feet in the corridor stretched like dough–stic, sticky.

necessary.

Twice more the nausea rose and receded.

Once I dozed for three breaths and dreamed of reeds whispering in anguage that had too many vowels.

Then Audrey slipped in again, eyes solt in a way she reserves for wounded wolves and foolish boys.

“They’re ready,” she said. “In the warm room. Marlow is telling them a story about a prince who married a baker and always smelled like cinnamon. Maria keeps correcting his pastry technique.”

“Of course she does,” I murmured.

Francesco came in behind Audrey, and he looked–he did it- human.

He had stripped coat and title both.

His sleeves were rolled, hair tied back in the crooked knot I always fix, boots dusty.

If you didn’t know, you would think he was a man withrge hands and arger voice who lifted flour sacks for sport.

“You’re sure?” he asked me,st chance at a different choice.

“Yes,” I said. “Bring them.”

He bent and touched my cheek with his mouth, brief and grounding, then vanished again.

A momentter they arrived in a cluster of knees and elbows and fear: the three from the garden.

The smallest clutched her cap in both hands, twisting it as if she could wring the cake back out of the past. The boy stared at the rug and didn’t blink. The oldest girl’s chin trembled with determination not to cry.

Marlow came in behind them like a cloud that rains when you need it.

Maria upied the doorway with a tray of untouched slices and the confidence of a woman who could break a siege with butter.

Francesco stayed back, a long shadow by the hearth, not looming.

He did not look at the children except to make sure they saw he wasn’t looking.

I gathered a voice that had been used too hard. “Come,” I said, and patted the foot of the bed. “Sit. Not so close we breathe each other’s air, but close enough I can see your eyes.”

They sat. Three careful, small animals pretending to be brave.

“What are your names?” I asked.

The smallest squeaked. “Pia.”

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The boy: “Henri.” He flinched at his own name, and Marlow put a hand like a tree on his shoulder.

The oldest: “Snge.”

“Good names,” I said, and meant it. “Pia, Henri, Snge–thank you for bringing me a cake.”

Their eyes snapped to mine, shock and relief keening together.

“It was good,” I lied kindly. “A little too much honey, but good.”

Maria hmmphed in the doorway in a way that meant urate and forgivable.

Snge’s face crumpled. “We didn’t mean-” The rest drowned in throat–sob.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why you’re here with me and not in the hall being shouted at. No shouting in this room. Only questions and answers.”

Pia’s fists squeezed her cap until the seam popped. “Are you going to die?” It burst out like a bubble that had waited too long at the bottom of a pond.

“No,” I said, simple as adder rung. “It hurt. Monica is cross with me for eating before she sniffed. My husband is practicing not breaking furniture. I am going to live.”

They sagged as if their bones had been scared out and now returned.

“Now,” I went on, “tell me about the cake. Who baked it?”

“We did,” Henri said quickly, brave in the wrong ce. “We used the oven behind the stables where Maria doesn’t look.”

Maria arched one eyebrow in a way that promised sweeping consequencester that had nothing to do with politics.

“With what flour?” Audrey asked, and her voice had no edge. It was the voice she uses when horses startle.

“The flour barrel,” Snge said. “Not the big one. The little one next to it.”

“Who gave you sugar?” Marlow asked, gentle curiosity as if he were cataloging pies.

“Madame Lise,” Pia whispered. “At the stall. She said we were kind to make something for the Luna, so she gave us a scoop and a handful of sugared peel.”

“She has always been kind,” Maria said, mostly to herself, storing the information neither defensively nor with malice–just a line on a ledger of favors.

“And the eggs?” Audrey asked.

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Pia swallowed. “A man gave us those. He said he had too many. And he said his wife used to make cakes for their Alpha and that it was a good habit for children.”

“A man,” Marlow echoed. “What did his hands look likeb?/bb” /b

“Like rope,” Henri said at once, grateful for a question he could answer. “The kind sailors have. He smelled…” He wrinkled his nose. “Like my uncle who salts hides.”

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“Did he tell you his name?” I asked.

Snge shook her head. “He told us to make sure the cake was warm when we brought it to you. He said that meant love.”

Maria swore in anguage she ims to have forgotten. Francesco’s fingers flexed once on the mantel.

“Did anyone else touch the batter?” Audrey asked. “Anyone at all?”

The children looked at one another, then at their knees, then at me. I kept my mouth soft. “It is not a sin to tell the truth,” I said. “Even when the truth frightens you.”

“We broke the eggs,” Pia whispered. “But thest one…” She heaved in a breath. “The man said we were too slow. So he cracked it for us. And then he stirred.” She made a little circle in the air with one forefinger. “Like that. Ten times. He made me count.”

Monica’s head lifted; she and I had the same thought–ten is a number witches like when they want to hide a thing in a thing.

“Did he say anything when he stirred?” Marlow asked, so mild you could butter it.

“He hummed,” Henri said miserably. “A song I don’t know.”

“What did it taste like?” Maria asked abruptly.

Three small faces frowned at her. “The song,” she amended. “What does it taste like?”

“Wet,” Pia said promptly, with the certainty children sometimes have when they are absolutely right. “Like the river when it gets into your mouth and it’s not supposed to.”

Monica’s breath went in sharp. Francesco’s jaw worked once, a tide pulling back from a cliff.

I reached out, palm up. “Pia. Give me your cap.”

She did. I turned it over; a few pale grains clung to the seam, sugar the color of winter morning. Maria took iit/i, sniffed, then put the smallest touch to her tongue and spat with elegant fury into the hearth.

“Not mine,” she announced. “Not from any stall that pays me the respect of washing their jars.”

“Madame Lise?” I asked.

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“Would never,” Maria said, a de in her voice that would cut kind and unkind alike if they lied to her face. “This came from a hand that knows sugar as a mask, not a food.”

Marlow rubbed his jaw. “The man with rope hands will not be a man by the time we find him. He will be a change of coat, a different hat, a new mouth. But rope burns hem a life. I’ll ask at the river.”

“Not just the river,” Audrey said. “The salt sheds. The tannery. Anywhere the fen leaves itsundry.”

Francesco stepped forward then, and the children went very still. He did not get closer than he had been, but the air changes when he moves in a room. He knelt–slow, unwinding height into humility–and rested his forearms on his thighs.

“Pia. Henri. Snge.” He spoke their names like they were a password to a gentler country. “You brought my mate a gift because you wanted to be kind. That is the truth that will stay in this room.” He paused until they were breathing again. “Later, soldiers may ask you questions. They will be Marlow’s men and Audrey’s women. If anyone else speaks to you, you bite them. In spirit or in ankle.”

Pia made a small noise that might have been augh. Henri stared, then nodded as if given a sword. Snge’s chin steadied.

“No one will punish you,” I added. “If anyone tries, you tell them your Luna said to send them to me. I am very cruel before breakfast.”

Maria snorted. “After breakfast too.”

The smallest–sweet saints–smiled. Something unclenched in my ribs.

“Go with Maria now,” I said. “Wash your hands. She will teach you to break eggs without swallowing their ghosts.”

Maria clicked her tongue and swept them like a tide. At the door, Snge turned back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. It wasn’t for the cake. It was for the way fear had made her doubt she’d done a good thing.

“I know,” I said. “We will make another one when I am hungry again. You’ll crack thest egg.”

Her chin rose a fraction. They vanished into the corridor, a small weather moving toward the kitchens.

The room exhaled. The ache in my belly had shrunk to something I could hold in my palm and call by a name: not yet. Outside, hooves ttered in the yard. Not hurried enough to be Lira–yet.

Francesco rose and came back to me. He didn’t touch until I nodded, and then he did–my wrist, my cheek, the corner of my mouth.

“You were right,” he said. It had the quiet of an oath. “No fear on the children. We will find the hand that

stirred.”

“Find the song,” Monica said, eyes distant with the kind of listening healers do when they eavesdrop on what the body remembers. “The circle and the hum.”

Marlow rolled his shoulders, already scenting the day’s hunt. “I’ll go to the river.”

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“I’ll go to the sheds,” Audrey said. “And the women who salt skins. They always know who brings more stink

than meat.”

Francesco nodded, then nced toward the window as if he could drag the horizon closer by will. “Alfonso…”

“Is not falling off a horse,” Audrey said, that rare sliver of humor again. “He sent a runner from the bridge. Lira was already moving before his letter reached her.”

Of course she was. Lira always knows when a thread on our side of the tapestry snags.

“Then we wait,” Francesco said–words he hates, spoken without flinch. He bent to me again. “And we don’t make any more promises to blood we didn’t spill.”

It was a line he’d been smoothing sincest night, and I loved him for holding it like a de he could pass to me when my hand shook.

Hooves, closer now. Voices in the yard–astonishment, augh, someone swearing he’ll never race a woman from Florence again as long as he lives.