"First light," said Barbara. She rose to her full height, looming over his kitchen like a misplaced tree, and Cavendish wondered how she hadn't aged a day while he'd become a heap of regrets. "The villagers meet in the square before dawn. Payment's up front, if you ask smartly."
Cavendish grunted. He didn't trust town councils or their up-front payments, but Barbara was better at squeezing blood from a stone. "If this is a trick, I'll set your boots on fire."
He caught himself at the threshold, suddenly aware he hadn't said yes, not out loud. Yet his hands already weighed the lantern, his pocket already checked for matches, body moving as if there'd never been a question.
Barbara stood in the doorway, red hair haloed by the cottage's yellow lamp. Her expression said she'd known all along.
She raked him over with a critical look. "My boots cost more than your house, Cav."
He grumbled and tucked the lantern inside his patched coat, then sat back down on the edge of the bed. The room felt smaller now, walls inching in. "You want the cot?" he offered, managing a lopsided grin. "Or do you still sleep standing up like a vulture?"
Barbara didn't answer. She'd already claimed the chair by the stove and was methodically emptying her pockets, lining up pills, knives, and an odd glass vial that glowed faintly blue. He watched her for a minute. She outpaced him in everything, even silence.
"That is literally the entire job," said Barbara, the hint of a laugh underneath. "You were always the best at poking."
"Was. Was the best." Cavendish clapped the trunk shut with a muted thud. He didn't want to think about what else that trunk had held over the years. Or what he'd left behind in it.
He slumped onto the bed, boots planted wide, lantern dangling between his knees. Seventy gold. He tried not to picture the stack of coins, but it followed him like a sickly dog. With that money, he could repair the leaking roof, maybe patch the fence and buy a keg to get through winter instead of this soggy, thin milk. Maybe even settle up with Greggory, so the next time the postman passed him in the square he didn't have to duck into the bakery and pretend to need another sad cruller.
From the stove, Barbara watched him with that faint, unreadable twitch at the corner of her mouth. She hadn't touched the glass since her first swig, but had already inventoried her gear into neat, soft piles: knives, vials, one jagged stone with a hole through the center. Some things never changed. She scuffed her boot on the floorboards, looking for all the world like she'd never left.