“And that is?” May asked cautiously.
“Why, it’s simple, love.” Mum smiled. “Somewhere in that closet is a present that’ll win your heart. Surely one of these suitors of yours has actually bothered to get to know you. We only need to find his gift.”
“But Mum, that would mean—”
“No quailing, Maylily. We’ll have to open them all.”
And so they did. Box by box and bag by bag, May and Mum tore paper, untied ribbon, snipped string, and opened envelopes until May’s hands stung from paper cuts and she prayed she would never celebrate a birthday or Winterfair ever again, simply to avoid the presence of presents.
The single most common gift was perfume. Every one of them was awful. Why so many men thought they were better judges of scent than a woman who made people smell good for a living, May couldn’t begin to guess, nor did Mum have a pithy answer when she asked the question out loud.
The second most common gift was food, which, having all spoiled, admittedly smelled worse than the perfume—though they made many jokes to the contrary.
Then there was the clothing. So much clothing. Some of it fit and some didn’t, some was tasteful and some wasn’t. But considering May worked seven days a week and rotated through the same set of simple dresses and aprons, it was hard to argue that any man who sent her clothing really knew her, even if he knew her measurements.
Four and a half hours later, the sun had long since gone down, and May and her mother sat like two lonely dinghies in an ocean of ribbon, string, and paper.
“Well,” said Mum. “Whom do you like best?”
May picked up a block of blue-veined cheese—they hadn’t decided if it was supposed to be that way or not—and dropped it back into a pile of white waxed paper.
“Don’t sulk, Maylily,” Mum said. “You’ve got to pick someone.”
“I certainly don’t!” May gestured at the wreckage around them. “Look at this place. You came here to help me clean my shop for the season and instead we destroyed it, because you’ve got a bee in your bonnet that I need a ring on my finger and a man in my life. Well, I don’t. I built a successful business on Coin Hill, I have loads of friends, and I’m happy, Mum. I’m happy! Doesn’t that count for something?”
Mum leaned over, picked up the veiny cheese, and began wrapping it up. “It counts for everything, May,” she said softly. “I’ll start tidying this mess. You take a break.”
“Forget it. We’ll tackle it tomorrow.” May stood and reached out a hand to help Mum up. “Good thing I closed for the week. Come on, I’ll put a kettle on for tea.”
Mum took her hand and hauled herself to her feet, and together they headed for the door to May’s workroom, shuffling through the remnants of their afternoon’s efforts. As she neared the edge of the debris, May aimed a sarcastic kick at a stack of crumpled wrappers in various candy colors. Having removed her shoes hours earlier, she yelped when her toe clanged against something hard.
“What was that, darling?” asked Mum.
“I don’t know,” May said. “The one that got away, I guess.”
“A perfume bottle, I expect.” Mum sighed. “Just leave it, we’ll sweep it up with the others tomorrow.”
“That’s all right.” May leaned down and began shuffling through the papers. “I’d rather get it now.”
But rather than a perfume bottle, she found a package the size of her hand, plainly wrapped in brown paper, with no card or marking other than the name “May Featherlight” written in pencil. It was strangely light for its size, as though whatever was inside was hollow, and… warm.
“Well?” said Mum.
“I don’t know.” May tugged at the paper, which fell away easily. Inside was a glass jar of the sort used for pickling. But rather than food, it held—
“Maylily Dogblossom, some boy sent you a fire elemental!”
Within the jar, a ribbon of blue flame jerked and sparked like a living thing. May was no archmage, nor did she know much of city magic—the spells she worked for her special-order soaps were ones she’d learned far from the crowded streets of Lackmore—but she understood that most urban enchantments were powered by bound elemental spirits like this one. It was a tidier form of sorcery than the wild magic of the highlands, or the humble rustic spells she’d learned in the Reeve, but it suited the orderly chaos of life in the big city.
May beamed at her mother. “Do you have any idea how much this could help me with my work? Just making the quicklime—the amount of wood I burn to get the fire hot enough—this elemental will save me… I don’t know, a lot of gold!”
“May, that’s an expensive gift.” Mum’s voice was soft. “Who sent it?”
Catching her mother’s tone, May tamped down her excitement. “I don’t know. It didn’t say.” She stared at the wreckage around them. “Even if there was a card, we’ll never find it now.”
“Well, if you ever do sort out who sent it, you could do worse than to marry a rich fellow with a knack for the sensible.”
May looked back at the elemental, watching it dance in its jar. “I’m not getting married, Mum.”
“I’m not criticizing, darling. It’s only an observation.” Mum put a hand gently on May’s back. “Now, I believe you mentioned tea? Your gift can heat it up for us.”
THE UNDERBENDER
On a lonely stretch of the King’s Road, somewhere south of Lackmore and north of the Reeve, rain pattered on the thicket. A rabbit huddled under one particularly dense bush, nibbling at a tuber and contemplating his good fortune in finding such a sensible place to wait out the weather.
His head came up, nose twitching, at a sound as yet inaudible to the other creatures holed up along the roadway. He wasted only a moment in contemplation—and rabbit moments are quicker than most—then, with hardly any remorse at the loss of his supper and refuge, bolted.
Soon the sound grew loud enough to be heard over the rain: hoofbeats, shaking the King’s Road with their approach. A pair of thrushes took flight to find somewhere they could sing undisturbed. A moment later a horse came thundering around a bend in the road, hooves churning the earth, spraying mud in a great arc.
The horse was a compact but powerful stallion, built for speed, its flowing muscles and glossy coat unmistakeable even under the layer of filth it wore. A rider bent low over its withers, reins looped around her right hand and a rapier in her left. In her battered leathers she was the same color as her mount, except for the bright yellow bandana around her face, which seemed to have escaped the evening’s rain and muck.
“Go, Brigand!” she shouted, snapping the reins, and the horse cleared the bend and took to the straightaway with a fresh burst of speed. Soon they were gone, lost behind a curtain of rain.
A few moments passed, slow human moments, before a curious fox poked its nose from the underbrush. He sniffed the air in the hopes that horse and rider were truly gone—then yelped and ducked back into the thicket just as the rabbit had.
Two horses much larger than Brigand, bearing men much larger than the rider in the yellow bandana, galloped around the curve. Their crimson tabards were as patchy and mud-caked as their mounts, but on both of them the image of a gauntleted fist clutching a lightning bolt could be discerned.
One was helpless against the rain, but the other wore a battered black hat on his head and a chain shirt under his tabard. “Ride on, you dog!” he shouted. “She can’t run forever!”
Alix seemed unwilling to let go of her rapier, and used her right hand to tug at her bandana as they rode. She gulped down the steamy summer air with such desperation that for a moment, Brigand worried she would inhale the thickening rain with it.
“Lords Below, Brig,” she said, “you’d think I stole the whole pie!”
Brigand, focused on keeping his mistress away from the bad soldiers and rather enjoying the chase, didn’t reply.
“Not to mention,” Alix went on, “if Lord Pinchpenny back there had actually paid up, I could’ve just bought the slice.”
Brigand chuffed in agreement at that. They’d ridden all night to deliver an urgent letter to this Lord Pinchpenny (Brigand had never caught his real name) only to be, as humans put it, stiffed. Alix had returned to the stables fuming and cursing, but with enough presence of mind to steal Brigand’s supper before her own. Nor had she gotten caught doing it, which he appreciated.
Alix, who for all Brigand loved her didn’t seem to speak a lick of horse, replied, “You’re right, old boy. This rain’s looking worse by the minute and while I’d bet the house on you on turf, I can’t say for certain you’ll win a swimming contest.”
Brigand snorted and piled on the speed. He was a fine swimmer.
