Damien Vladermer's Arc

Chapter 7 of 13

Skylar woke different. She did not talk about the academy. She sat at the kitchen counter with her laptop and her old canvas bag beside her. "I'm behind on orders," she said. "If I don't ship this week, I lose my rating." She did not look up. The academy was gone from her voice, like a door she had stopped knocking on. Damien watched her choose the thing she could still fix. He knew that platform better than she did. He had built it. He said none of that. "What do you need?" he asked. "Supplies," she said. "Wool. Wax. Dye. I can't make what I can't buy." She counted coins in her head, and he saw the total fail her. "I'll figure it out." "Let me drive you," he said. "You pick. I carry." She studied him the way she studied everyone, reading for the catch. He held still and let her. "No strings," he added. She nodded once. She slung the worn bag over her shoulder and stood. The supply shop smelled of wax and clean fiber. Skylar moved fast down the aisles. She knew exactly what she wanted. She held a skein of blue wool to the light and set it in the cart. She smelled a block of soap and made a small sound of approval. Damien pushed the cart and carried what would not fit. For the first time since the academy, her shoulders had dropped from her ears. "This one sells out every month," she said, showing him a jar of pale dye. "People like the color of the sky before rain." She caught herself talking and stopped. Then she kept going anyway. She told him which items were cheap to make and sold high. She told him which customers wrote her kind notes. He asked questions. He wanted to learn her, not the numbers. She answered them all. At the counter she reached for her bag and started sorting bills. Damien had already paid. She turned on him, sharp. "I said no strings." "It's not a string," he said. "It's wax. You'll pay me in the first batch." She held his gaze a long moment. Then something in her face let go. She smiled. It was small and real, the first he had earned. Warmth spread through his chest, slow and strange. For one beat he could almost feel his heart beat again. He had been dead a long time. Her smile did what no blood had done. They loaded the bags into the car. She pulled the old canvas bag into her lap and hugged it. "Thank you," she said. "I mean it." She did not add a warning about leaving. She just sat close. Damien understood what had changed. She had stopped waiting to be chosen by others. She had let him help her build something of her own. She did not know he owned the very platform she was fighting to save. That truth sat between them now, heavier than before.