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The wheelwright stood up. “The scaffold’s mine, and I’ll thank the room to note the joints are clean and the bracing’s honest. Not one plank of it was ever meant to hold a shingle. It’s a stage set.” He stiffened under my stare. “Finest thing I’ve built all year.”

“The inspections were mine,” Aris said, stirring her tea. “Every plank I told Mrs. Honeycake to condemn was sound. I carried an empty satchel with a straight face, and you believed me. You always do.”

I shook my head. “And the funding?”

The grannies’ table must’ve been waiting to be asked.

Mrs. Piddock’s mother folded her hands on top of the betting book. “A wager isn’t sporting, dear, if you’re also arranging the result. So we arranged it in the open. Line item. It’s in the book.” She patted it. “We covered Rufus’s drowned shingles out of the kitty. We are a great many things, but we are not unsporting.”

Zephyrine stood up and wrung her hands at her waist until she made them stop. “The dry spell was mine. Over your lane. I held it there so the rain couldn’t get into your open rooms and force the repairs.” Her voice wobbled. “The roof had to stay off without ever once becoming a misery to you.”

Four weeks of clear sky, held in place by a witch.

“I gave you good weather,” Zeph said, “so you would stay out at the farm. I’m sorry, but it’s the finest working I’ve done in years.”

“You damaged my home,” I said. “You nearly made me homeless.”

“Beautifully,” Melissant said, making a note.

My familiar chose that moment to enter the tavern and walk the length of the bar, the lantern-jar dangling from her mouth, the sprite waving to the crowd like visiting royalty. Ginger sat down at the end of the bar.

Amateurs, she said, gazing out over the crowd. A month of lumber-shuffling, minutes, subcommittees. I moved one label. One. Study greatness, all of you.

“My mother arrives on Saturday,” I said. “To a tarpaulin.”

The tavern sobered.

Chairs scraped.

The Hollow does few things fast, but I could see them calculating already.

“We’ll have the roof ready by Thursday,” said Rufus, rolling down his sleeves.

“Shingles by Tuesday,” the wheelwright called out. “With real specifications.”

“I’ll inspect and approve everything quickly,” Mrs. Honeycake said, her hand on her flour-dusted chest.

“And the quarters will be aired, scrubbed, and a pie will sit on the sill by Saturday morning,” Mrs. Piddock said. “Whatever else this village is, it is not going to have Cyrena Trevil come home to a dusty room. The woman would repossess our teeth.”

My mother’s reputation, at least, had survived the conspiracy intact.

Goran drove us home through the sunset, the lantern swinging, Ginger asleep on my lap. Her aide-de-camp slept in his honey jar by my feet.

“You’re quiet,” he said as we crossed the Old Bridge.

“I’m still furious.”

“Hm.”

“I’m going to be furious for a while. It was my roof, Goran. My home. They took my home hostage and fed me pastries to get over it. Everyone knew but us, and I was worried. I lay awake adding up repair costs the first week, do you know that? I get it from Mama. And half this county was being paid to keep away.” I pulled the shawl tighter. “Furious. For a while yet. Days.”

“That’s fair.”

“Possibly through Thursday.”

Nobody had ever done this for me. He was letting me be furious without trying to fix it, or talk me down, or wait me out. He just let it be mine. The wagon rattled over the bridge with the river whispering underneath.

“They never asked me,” I said, quieter. “That’s the worst of it. Everyone in that tavern decided where I belonged, months ago, before I’d decided anything, and they were all so sure. Sure enough to drown lumber over it. Sure enough to form subcommittees.” A shooting star zipped across the sky, burning out before it reached the horizon. “How did the entire village know where I belonged before I did?”