Isobel Castile inherited a manor and a bucket to catch the rain. She stood in the grand hall of her new estate, watching water drip through a hole in the roof. She meant to make this place the finest salon in AlderShade, a house where rich people paid to drink her wine and admire her taste. But the roof would cave in before the first snow, and she had exactly no coin to fix it. Her tortoiseshell cat picked its way around the puddle, tail high. "Don't look at me like that," she said. "I know it's bad." "You inherited a ruin," the cat said, licking one paw. "I'd call that worse than bad." Isobel had stopped flinching at the talking weeks ago. She counted her purse again. Six copper bits and a button. A proper roofer wanted silver she didn't have. She needed someone cheap, someone desperate enough to work for promises. She found that someone in the garden pavilion, the one graceful thing left standing. Ivy climbed its wooden posts, and a young woman sat on its steps, eating an apple as if she owned the place. A travel-worn green coat. A silver mark burned into her wrist. She did not stand when Isobel approached. "You're on my property," Isobel said. "You have a leak," the woman said. "I heard the whole village laughing about it. Wren Oakhallow. I patch roofs." She tossed the apple core into the ivy. "I don't stay anywhere long. So I'm cheap." Isobel folded her arms. "How cheap?" "Depends. What can you pay?" "Six coppers and a button." Wren laughed, short and dry. "For a roof that size? No." She stood, coat swinging. "But I need a place to sleep out of the rain, and yours has walls. I'll patch it before winter. You give me a bed and meals until spring." Isobel studied her. The offer was good. Too good, maybe, from a woman who never looked back. But the sky was gray, and the button in her purse would not stop the snow. "Done," Isobel said, and put out her hand. Wren looked at it, then at the silver scar on her own wrist, and shook without warmth. "One rule. You don't ask about the mark. Not ever." "I don't care where you've been," Isobel said. "I care that my roof holds." By dusk Wren was on the ridge, hauling rope and salvaged shingles, working faster than any hired man. The dripping in the hall slowed to nothing. Isobel stood below with the cat and let herself breathe. "You solved the roof," the cat said. "But you just handed a stranger the keys to your house." Isobel watched the woman above her, quick and silent against the darkening sky. The roof would hold now. That bought her the winter, and a guest who guarded a secret she had promised never to touch.