Jake kept his arms spread over the baskets. The trolls did not charge. They only stared, three walls of wet stone, and the largest one grunted, "Grapes come back. Now." Jake's mind raced past them. Even if he kept the fruit, he had nowhere to press it. His barrels stood empty, but he owned no crusher, no vat, no cool room for fermenting. The deadline pressed like a hand on his neck. He had grapes and no way to make wine from them. "Wait," Jake said. "Please. Let me explain." A new voice cut through the dark. "They don't explain well. Trolls. But they trade." Jake turned. A small woman stepped into the firelight. She was half his height, with long black hair and green eyes that missed nothing. She wore a short skirt and tall leather boots, muddy at the toe. She looked the trolls up and down like she was pricing them. Jake had never seen her before, yet she walked past the stone giants without a flinch. "Who are you?" Jake asked. "Quynh." She smiled, sweet and sharp. "I make wine two ridges over. I heard a man bragged he'd win the festival with no vines." Her eyes flicked to the baskets. "Looks like the man found vines." The largest troll rumbled. Quynh raised one small hand. "They want the garden respected," she said. "Not the grapes, really. The garden." She turned to the trolls. "He gives you a tithe. One cask of the wine, every year. You let him crush this batch tonight." The trolls leaned close and ground words at each other. Jake held his breath. At last the big one nodded, once, and the three turned and walked back toward the river. Jake let his arms drop. "You saved my grapes." "I saved your deadline," Quynh said. "You still can't press these. No crusher. No vat." She said it plainly, no cruelty in it. "But I have both. Load your baskets. My cellar is cold and empty and waiting." Jake stared at her. A stranger's cellar. A stranger's tools. His whole vintage carried out of his own hands. He looked at the empty barrels along his wall, then at the fruit ripening past its best on the table. "Why help me?" he asked. "Because I want to watch you lose fair," she said, and laughed. "Or win. Either way it's a better show than an empty cellar." Jake gathered the baskets. His back ached again. He followed her out into the dark, past the beds he had tended his whole life, toward a press he did not own on land he did not know. By dawn the grapes were crushed. The juice sat in Quynh's vat, bubbling to life. Jake had his fermentation. He also had a debt to three trolls and a rival who held his wine in her cellar. The vintage was made. It just wasn't his anymore.