The next morning, the knocks came later.

  Vane noticed that before he noticed anything else.

  He was already awake, kneeling by the hearth, coaxing flame from yesterday’s coals with thin kindling and patient breaths. Orion sat wrapped in a blanket nearby, carved wolf in his lap, watching the fire catch as if it were a trick he still hadn’t solved.

  At the inn, mornings had belonged to noise.

  Doors. Boots. Voices through walls.

  In this house, mornings had shape.

  Fire first. Water second. Food before light fully broke.

  Then the day.

  The first knock didn’t come until Orion had already finished half his porridge and smeared the rest across one cheek.

  Vane wiped it off with a cloth.

  Orion slapped the cloth away on instinct, then leaned into Vane’s hand anyway.

  Vane ignored the contradiction.

  The knock came again.

  He opened the door to a woman carrying two things at once: a basket of laundry on one hip and a cracked wooden ladle.

  Her eyes flicked to Orion, then to the bench by the window.

  “You busy?” she asked.

  Vane looked at the ladle. Split near the handle, clean break. Easy.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  She pulled it free and held it out. “Can it be fixed?”

  Vane took it, turned it once in his fingers, and shook his head.

  “Not worth fixing,” he said. “I can make another.”

  The woman blinked. “How long?”

  Vane glanced at the light outside. “Come back after midday.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. I’ll pay.”

  “I know,” Vane said, and shut the door before she could mistake that for friendliness.

  Behind him, Orion had turned toward the bench, eyes bright.

  He watched Vane choose a scrap from the wood box.

  Watched him measure it by hand.

  Watched him carve the shape slowly, shaving curls of pale wood onto the floor.

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  The cub didn’t move for a while. Just stared.

  Then, when Vane started smoothing the handle with a rough cloth, Orion crawled closer and sat beside his boot.

  Tap.

  Orion set the carved wolf against the floor once.

  Tap-tap.

  He did it again, softer, like he was trying to match Vane’s rhythm.

  Vane didn’t look at him.

  “Don’t chew the shavings,” he muttered.

  Orion reached for one immediately.

  Vane caught his wrist without thinking.

  Orion looked offended.

  Vane took the shaving, flicked it into the fire, and went back to work.

  By noon, the ladle was finished.

  Simple. Strong. Nothing decorative.

  The woman returned with damp sleeves and tired eyes. She nodded once, and paid without haggling—bronze coins, counted cleanly into Vane’s palm.

  Then she looked at Orion, who was staring at the basket.

  “He always watches like that?” she asked.

  Vane tied the coins into his pouch. “Yes.”

  The woman shifted the basket higher. “Creepy little cub.”

  Orion made a sharp, annoyed sound as if he understood tone, if not words.

  The woman laughed once and left.

  Vane stood in the doorway for a second, staring after her.

  Creepy, he thought.

  Then he looked back at Orion—messy hair, porridge stain on his sleeve, carved wolf clenched in one hand.

  No.

  Not creepy.

  Just... too aware.

  That afternoon brought work in pieces, not a line.

  A bent hook for hanging meat.

  A child’s stool with one loose leg.

  A grain scoop with a split seam.

  Nothing urgent. Nothing large.

  But the rhythm had changed since the house.

  Wolves no longer came only when something broke badly.

  They came because they had started thinking of Vane before the thing failed completely.

  Preventing, not just repairing.

  That was new.

  That was worse.

  Because it meant he was becoming part of how Harrowden worked.

  Near dusk, a boy from the lane behind the communal hall came running up with a bundle tied in cloth and a face red from the cold.

  “My mother says if you can sharpen these before dark, she’ll pay extra,” he blurted, already holding the bundle out.

  Vane untied it.

  Kitchen knives. Three of them. Dull from real use, not neglect.

  He looked at the boy. “Extra how much?”

  The boy blinked, then named a number too low.

  Vane stared at him.

  The boy swallowed. “...She said you’d do that. She said I should start lower.”

  Vane almost shut the door.

  Almost.

  Instead he named a fair price.

  The boy nodded so fast it looked painful and ran off before Vane could change his mind.

  Orion had watched the whole exchange from the floor, quiet and still.

  When the boy disappeared down the lane, Orion looked up at Vane and made a small questioning sound.

  Vane set the knives on the bench.

  “He tried to bargain badly,” Vane said flatly.

  Orion blinked.

  Vane paused, then added, “That means he’ll learn.”

  He didn’t know why he said it aloud.

  Maybe because the house was too quiet sometimes.

  Maybe because he was getting used to explaining things to someone who couldn’t answer.

  He hated that possibility.

  He sharpened the knives by firelight while Orion drifted between playing and watching, the cub’s attention catching on every scrape of steel against stone.

  Scrape. Turn. Scrape.

  By the second blade, Orion had found a spoon and was dragging it across the floorboards in his own terrible imitation.

  Vane stopped once, looked over his shoulder, and said, “No.”

  Orion froze.

  Waited.

  Then scraped the spoon more softly.

  Vane stared at him for a long moment.

  He should have taken it away.

  Instead, he turned back to the blade and let the spoon continue in small, irritating sounds behind him.

  When the boy returned, Vane handed over the knives wrapped in cloth. The boy checked one edge with his thumb, hissed when it nicked him, and grinned despite himself.

  “You really did all three,” he said.

  Vane’s expression didn’t move. “Your mother paid for three.”

  The boy thrust the coins at him and bolted before getting scolded for bleeding on the cloth.

  After the door shut, Orion laughed.

  A short, sudden burst.

  Vane turned.

  Orion was looking at the door, then at Vane, like the whole thing had been entertainment.

  “Don’t start,” Vane muttered.

  Orion slapped the spoon on the floor, pleased with himself.

  Night settled colder than the day had promised.

  Vane fed the hearth and checked the latch twice out of habit. He set Orion’s bowl down, then his own, and they ate in the crackling quiet.

  Orion grew sleepy halfway through and leaned into Vane’s side with absolute confidence, still chewing.

  Vane steadied the bowl before it tipped.

  For a while, neither of them moved much.

  The house creaked once in the wind.

  Somewhere outside, a wolf called to another across the lane—nothing urgent, just distance made into sound.

  Orion’s eyes drooped.

  His hand opened and closed against Vane’s sleeve.

  Vane looked down at him, at the child’s stubborn little jaw, the too-watchful eyes now heavy with sleep, the carved wolf left near the bench where he’d forgotten it.

  Forgotten it because he felt safe enough to.

  That thought hit harder than it should have.

  Vane set his bowl aside and lifted Orion, settling him onto the blanket near the hearth. Orion protested once, weakly, then rolled onto his side and clutched the edge of the blanket in sleep.

  Vane sat back at the bench.

  On the wood near the jars, he laid out the day’s coins in small stacks.

  Bronze mostly.

  A little silver.

  Nothing dramatic.

  Still, when he looked at them tonight, they didn’t feel like desperation.

  They felt like pattern.

  A roof beam didn’t become strong in one cut.

  A life didn’t become safe in one day.

  It was this. Repetition. Small things done properly. Again. Again. Again.

  Vane hated how much that sounded like training.

  He hated more that it was true.

  His gaze shifted to Orion.

  The cub slept on his side, one hand half-open, as if he’d fallen asleep reaching for something.

  Vane looked away first.

  He put the coins back in the pouch, hung it on its peg, and began cleaning the bench for tomorrow.

  Not because he expected a line at dawn.

  Because someone would knock.

  And Vane, without admitting it to himself, had already started preparing for the sound.