Spring arrived in Harrowden as mud before it arrived as warmth.

  The village had been all smoke and shut doors.

  Now the doors opened.

  Just enough for wet boots, quick errands, and new problems.

  The lane outside Vane’s house turned into a dark, stubborn strip of churned earth. Wheels sank. Fence posts leaned. Water collected in shallow ruts and reflected the gray sky in broken pieces.

  And the knocks came earlier again.

  Vane noticed that before dawn fully broke.

  He was crouched at the hearth, coaxing flame from last night’s coals with thin kindling and slow breaths. Behind him, Orion sat wrapped in a blanket, carved wolf in his lap, watching the fire catch with the same serious attention he gave everything.

  Crack.

  Flame lifted.

  Orion leaned forward and made a soft sound under his breath.

  Vane didn’t turn.

  “Still fire,” he muttered.

  Orion slapped the carved wolf once against the floorboards.

  Vane took that as commentary.

  He set water on. Measured grain. Measured salt. Measured what was left in the sack by habit and hand, not by looking. The room warmed slowly around them, boards creaking as if the house itself was waking.

  Outside, boots passed through mud.

  Then came the first knock.

  Two quick taps. A pause. One more.

  Vane opened the door and found Toma standing there with a wheelbarrow tipped on its side and one handle split near the grip.

  Toma looked like spring had personally insulted him. Mud to the calf. Beard damp. Temper already halfway used.

  “It gave out hauling feed,” he said. “I nearly dumped the whole load.”

  Vane took the broken handle, checked the split with his thumb, then looked at the barrow frame.

  “Other side’s weak too.”

  Toma grimaced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

  “Then don’t ask me first.”

  Toma snorted.

  Behind Vane, Orion made a sharp little sound.

  Toma leaned to look past him and huffed a laugh when he spotted the cub glaring from the blanket.

  “He always watches like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Looks like he’s judging me.”

  “He probably is.”

  Toma barked a surprised laugh, like he hadn’t expected Vane to answer with anything but stone.

  Then he caught himself, shoved the wheelbarrow handle higher under his arm, and cleared his throat.

  “How long?”

  Vane glanced at the bench, the wood stack, the morning light just starting to reach the window.

  “By dusk. Both handles.”

  Toma reached into his coat and handed coins into Vane’s palm—bronze, then one silver.

  “Half now,” he said. “And if it holds through mud season, I’ll stop cursing your prices.”

  Vane closed his fingers around the coins.

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  “That’ll be a first.”

  Toma stared at him, then laughed again and dragged the barrow away through the lane.

  Vane shut the door and stood still for one heartbeat.

  He wasn’t used to joking.

  He wasn’t sure he liked it.

  Orion slapped the carved wolf again like a verdict.

  Vane turned back to the hearth. “Eat.”

  The morning filled fast.

  Not with a line this time—spring kept everyone moving—but with a steady turn of drop-offs.

  A bent gate hinge from the lower lane.

  A split spoon rack from a kitchen that smelled of smoke and goat milk.

  A loose chest-hasp a widow said she was “tired of fighting every evening.”

  They came wet from chores, paid fast, talked little.

  This was how Harrowden trusted people.

  Not with speeches.

  With repeat business.

  Vane set prices before his hands moved.

  He worked at the bench while Orion crawled his small routes around the room: hearth to blanket, blanket to bench leg, bench leg back to Vane’s boot.

  Still crawling.

  Still not speaking.

  Still small enough that Vane could lift him with one arm and a tool in the other if he had to.

  But stronger now. Quicker. More certain.

  By midday the lane had turned worse.

  Rain began as a mist, then settled into a steady cold drizzle that darkened roofs and turned mud into slick clay.

  The knocks thinned.

  Vane used the pause to finish Toma’s handles properly—paired from the same plank, cut to balance, grips wrapped with leather strips where wet hands would slip.

  He tested the barrow with weight before Toma ever returned for it, setting stones inside and pushing it across the packed strip near the back wall.

  It held.

  Good.

  He was wiping the bench when he heard shouting outside.

  Not panic.

  The sharp, irritated yelling of someone losing an argument with an animal.

  Then a louder voice:

  “Vane!”

  He went to the door at once.

  A teenage boy stood in the lane, half soaked, breathing hard.

  “Fence line by the goat shed broke,” the boy blurted. “Three got loose—Toma says bring rope and nails if you have them!”

  Vane was already turning back inside before the boy finished.

  He grabbed rope, hammer, nails, a short hatchet.

  Then he looked at Orion.

  The cub was watching him with wide, bright focus, body already leaning toward the motion.

  Vane swore under his breath.

  He could not leave Orion alone.

  He could take him.

  He hated both options.

  He moved fast, wrapping Orion tight against his chest under his coat, securing the bundle high where he could keep one arm free.

  Orion made a protesting sound at being pinned so quickly.

  “Quiet,” Vane said.

  Orion went quiet.

  The boy was already halfway back down the lane when Vane stepped out and followed.

  The goat shed sat near the lower edge of Harrowden where the ground dipped and held water too long.

  By the time Vane got there, Toma was ankle-deep in mud, swearing at a half-collapsed side fence while one goat stood on a woodpile like a king and two others nosed toward a garden they clearly did not belong in.

  Toma looked up, rain on his beard.

  “Took you long enough.”

  “You called a boy, not a runner.”

  Toma pointed at the fence. “Post loosened. Rail came off. They pushed through.”

  Vane took one look and understood the real problem.

  Winter rot at the post base. Spring mud did the rest.

  “You need a new post.”

  “I need goats inside before my wife kills me.”

  Fair.

  Vane handed the rope to the boy. “Circle left. Wide. Don’t chase straight.”

  The boy blinked. “What?”

  “Wide,” Vane snapped. “Make them turn back, not run forward.”

  The boy obeyed.

  Toma grabbed another line. Between the two of them—and a lot of noise—they got the wandering goats funneled back toward the gap.

  One tried to bolt past Vane.

  He shifted once, planted the hatchet handle across its path, and turned it back with almost no motion at all.

  Toma saw it.

  His eyes narrowed for a split second—not fear, not suspicion. Recognition of skill.

  Then the moment passed because the goat nearly climbed him.

  “Inside!” Toma barked.

  Once the animals were in, Vane dropped to the broken section and got to work.

  Rain ran off his sleeves. Mud sucked at his boots. Orion stayed pressed against his chest, silent but awake, head turned toward the movement, toward the hammer, toward the rhythm of repair.

  Pull the rotten post.

  Set the new depth.

  Brace with stone.

  Drive the nails.

  Reset rail height.

  He worked fast, but not reckless.

  Toma hovered for exactly three breaths before Vane said, “Hold this,” and shoved a rail into his hands.

  That solved the problem of hovering.

  The teenage boy stood in the rain watching the hammer strikes with the kind of stare Orion gave the bench—open, hungry, memorizing.

  “Why angle it like that?” the boy asked over the rain.

  Vane didn’t look up. “Because the mud will pull straight, and this won’t.”

  The boy went quiet.

  Toma grunted. “Hear that? Learn something useful for once.”

  The boy muttered something under his breath and kept holding the rope.

  When the fence stood again, the goats tested it once, then lost interest.

  Toma pressed both hands against the rail and leaned.

  It held.

  He looked at Vane, then at Orion bundled against his chest, then back at the fence.

  “I can pay now,” he said.

  “Do it after you’re dry.”

  Toma frowned. “I said I can pay now.”

  Vane pulled mud from a nail pouch string and stood. “Then pay now.”

  Toma stared at him one second longer, then laughed—short, rough, approving. He counted out silver into Vane’s hand right there in the rain.

  More than a hinge job. Less than the work was worth.

  Fair enough.

  Then Toma’s wife appeared from the shed doorway with a look sharp enough to cut hide. She took one look at the mud, the repaired fence, Orion bundled in the rain, and vanished back inside without a word.

  Vane turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Toma said.

  He came back out a moment later holding a wrapped cloth bundle and shoved it toward Vane without meeting his eyes.

  “Goat cheese,” he muttered. “Before she changes her mind.”

  Vane looked at the bundle.

  Toma scowled. “Take it. She says the cub looks too thin.”

  Orion immediately made an offended sound from inside Vane’s coat.

  Toma barked a laugh. “See? He understood that one.”

  Vane took the bundle.

  “Fix your other post before the next rain,” he said, and walked away.

  They returned home soaked.

  Vane stripped the wet outer wrap off Orion first, checked the cub’s hands, ears, neck—cold, but not dangerously. Orion squirmed and protested until Vane got him into dry blankets by the hearth.

  Then Vane dealt with himself.

  By the time the room warmed again, the bench smelled of wet leather, rainwater, and fresh-cut wood. Orion sat near the fire, hair damp and wild, clutching the carved wolf and staring at Vane as if the whole outing had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  “You weren’t helping,” Vane said while hanging his coat.

  Orion slapped the floor.

  “Being carried is not helping.”

  Orion slapped it again, harder.

  Vane looked away before the corner of his mouth could move.

  He set Toma’s cheese on the table, unwrapped it, and cut a small piece while the grain simmered.

  When he turned back toward the pot, movement caught the edge of his eye.

  Orion had pulled himself up using the low stool by the hearth.

  Vane froze.

  The cub stood there on shaking legs, one hand barely touching the stool now, his whole little body tight with effort. His balance was terrible. His knees trembled. His face had gone still with concentration.

  Then Orion let go.

  One step.

  Small. Dragging. Unsteady.

  Vane didn’t move.

  He couldn’t.

  The second step was better.

  Not steady. Not strong. But real.

  And for one brief, impossible heartbeat, something opened across Vane’s face before he could stop it.

  A smile.

  Quick. Unthinking. Pure surprise.

  Then Orion’s weight tipped forward.

  The moment broke.

  The plate slipped from Vane’s fingers and hit the floor as he crossed the room in two long strides.

  Orion was already falling by the time Vane reached him.

  He caught him just before he struck the boards, one arm under his small body, the other hand shielding the back of his head with blind instinct.

  For a second Vane held him too tightly.

  His heart hammered against his ribs.

  Orion blinked up at him, flushed and bright-eyed, more startled by being stopped than by the fall itself.

  And only then did Vane realize his mouth was no longer hard.

  That he had smiled.

  The warmth vanished so fast it almost embarrassed him.

  He stared down at Orion, at the fierce little triumph still alive in his eyes, and something in his chest tightened in a way he did not want to name.

  “Of course,” he muttered, rough and quiet. “Of course you’d do it now.”

  Orion made a small pleased sound and clutched at his shirt.

  Vane looked past him at the two tiny steps between the stool and the place where he would have fallen.

  Two steps.

  That was all.

  And somehow it felt like the room would never be quite the same again.