The water had settled overnight. Nearly still. Coin could see the bottom through it when the light cooperated, stones and sediment and the dull shapes of whatever had been dropped or lost down here over the years. Midday was when the well came alive, a bright column of sun punching straight down through the opening, lighting up the surface, warming the stones for an hour before climbing the far wall and disappearing. Coin knew the arc by now. Knew exactly when it would arrive and how long it would last.

  The rest of the time it was this. Gray stone, dark water, the faint green bloom of moss on the walls where the damp never dried. Coin sat on a ledge where the mortar had crumbled out between the stones, a shelf wide enough to stay comfortable and high enough above the waterline to stay dry. The ledge had probably been a mistake by whoever built the well. Coin appreciated their craftsmanship failures.

  A bucket came down around the same time every morning. Rope creaking through the pulley, the shadow of the crossbar cutting across the opening above, and then the drop. It hit the water with a heavy slap, tilted, filled, and the rope went taut as it climbed back up. Water streamed off the bottom in silver threads that caught whatever light was available and broke it apart.

  Coin watched it go. Spinning on the rope as it rose, water sloshing against the wooden sides. Whoever was up there pulled with an even rhythm, hand over hand, patient. The bucket cleared the rim and disappeared and the well went quiet again.

  Morning settled in around the well the way it always did. Water dripped somewhere in the stonework, a slow percussion that had been going since before Coin arrived and would continue long after Coin left. Moss crept along the far wall in patches, bright where the damp held and dark where it didn't. Coin had been staring at it for a week and had no strong feelings about it either way.

  Light shifted as the sun moved. The bright column wouldn't arrive for hours yet, but the gray softened as the morning deepened, giving the stones a little texture. The water was clear enough to see the bottom through, pale sediment and dark rock and the vague shapes of things that had settled there over years of bucket splashes and slow accumulation.

  Another bucket came down in the afternoon. Different hands on the rope, less patient, the bucket dropping faster and hitting the surface harder. Water splashed up and caught Coin's edge. The bucket filled sloppy and heavy and went back up jerking against the sides of the shaft, banging stone on the way. Amateur work. Coin sat on the ledge and let the splash dry.

  Midday sun arrived on schedule. Coin sat in it for the full duration, soaking up the warmth, feeling it on every surface. The water turned gold beneath the shaft and the stones above glowed warm and for those minutes the well was the best place Coin had been in a while. Then the sun moved past and the color drained out and it was just a well again.

  The coin came later, toward evening. Light above had gone amber and soft and Coin heard a voice at the rim, a woman, talking low. A pause. Then the small bright flash of something falling, catching the last of the daylight as it tumbled through the opening and dropped.

  It hit the water and sank. A copper piece, common mint, worth less than the wish it carried. It drifted down through the clear water in slow arcs, turning as it fell, and settled on the bottom among the stones and sediment.

  Her voice came again, clearer now that she'd leaned over the edge. "Let the roads be less dusty this week. Please. I'm tired of washing my hems."

  WISH STATUS: UNGRANTED.

  The copper piece sat on the bottom, already dimming as the sediment settled around its edges. By morning it would be half-buried. By the end of the week it would be gone entirely, swallowed by the same slow process that had been eating everything down here since the well was dug.

  Coin watched it disappear. The evening darkened overhead and the rim of the well became a circle of deep blue, then deeper, then stars. The water went black. The dripping continued.

  Coin sat on the ledge and waited for the morning bucket.

  Buckets came and went. The well had a rhythm to it and Coin had settled into it the way Coin settled into anything, completely and without effort. Morning bucket, afternoon bucket, sometimes a third if the day was hot. The sun column arrived at midday and Coin soaked in it and then it left and the gray came back.

  Another copper dropped one afternoon. A man's voice followed it down, rough, tight, the words pushed out fast like he wanted them over with. "Let her say yes. That's it. Just let her say yes."

  He left before the coin hit the bottom.

  Coin has heard that wish before. Different voices, different centuries, always the same shape. Someone wanting someone else to want them back. Coin has watched whole kingdoms rearrange themselves around that impulse. Coin has bent probability in rooms full of people who thought they understood what was happening. Coin has made kings look lucky and made their enemies look cursed and nobody ever knew the difference.

  Coin could have helped with that one.

  The copper sank and settled among the others on the bottom. Coin watched it land and stayed where Coin was.

  The light moved through its slow arc overhead and the stones dried where the morning bucket had splashed them and went dark again when the afternoon bucket came down. Somewhere above the rim a bird had started nesting, or roosting, or whatever birds did when they found a crossbar they liked. Coin could hear it scratching around up there in the early mornings, small busy sounds that had nothing to do with anything.

  The water was still. The moss was green. The ledge held.

  A girl came with a wish on a bright morning, leaning over the rim so far her voice echoed clean off the walls. "I wish my cat would come home. He's orange and his name is Biscuit and he's been gone since market day."

  Coin could find a cat. Coin has tracked a stolen crown across a continent. Coin has tilted the odds on a battlefield while still covered in mud from the last one. An orange cat named Biscuit was nothing.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  The girl left. The well went quiet.

  Coin has been an observer before. Coin has watched cities burn and not moved. Coin has sat through coronations and coups and the slow rot of dynasties that thought they'd last forever. Sitting in a well was easy. Coin was good at easy.

  The bucket came down twice that afternoon, which meant someone was thirsty or washing something or just having a day that needed more water. The splash caught Coin's ledge on the second pull and pooled around Coin's edge before draining back. The water settled. The stones dried. The coppers on the bottom caught whatever dim light filtered down and held it, dull and patient, each one carrying a wish that nobody was going to answer.

  Coin could do something about that. Coin has done something about less.

  ***

  A copper dropped through the opening. Late afternoon. The light was good.

  Coin was ready.

  The coin hadn't finished sinking when Coin spoke. Full voice, thrown straight up the shaft, aimed at the rim with everything the well's acoustics had to offer.

  "SPEAK YOUR DESIRE."

  The scream that came back was extraordinary. A woman's voice, shredded through the upper register, followed by the heavy crash of someone hitting the ground. Something wooden bounced off the stone rim and clattered away through the grass. A bucket, maybe. Whatever she'd been carrying was gone and she was gone with it, the sound of scrambling hands and knees tearing through dirt, putting distance between herself and the hole in the ground that had just yelled at her.

  Then nothing. Wind through grass. A bird somewhere. The well sat in its silence and Coin sat in the well and waited.

  The quiet lasted a long time. Long enough that a lesser commitment would have assumed she'd left. But Coin could hear her out there, somewhere past the rim, breathing ragged and fast, body already gone, curiosity dragging it back.

  The breathing moved. Closer. Stopping. Closer again. A slow creep back toward the rim that took longer than the retreat had because retreats were instinct and returns were choices and choices took time.

  Her shadow appeared at the edge. Barely. A sliver of darkness cutting the light, peeking over the rim and pulling back in the same motion.

  "Hello?" Her voice came down shaking. "Is someone down there? Are you hurt?"

  CONCERN: MISPLACED.

  "I AM NOT IN NEED OF RESCUE."

  The shadow vanished. More scrambling. This time Coin heard her hit something on the way back, a fence post or a low wall, and the sound she made when she hit it was closer to a bark than a word. She was up again fast though. Coin could hear her pacing out there, working through it, talking to herself in fragments that the wind kept pulling apart.

  The pacing slowed. Stopped. Started again, closer.

  "There's someone in the well," she said. Not to Coin. To herself. Processing it out loud the way people did when reality had taken a turn they hadn't agreed to. "There's a person. In the well. Talking."

  The shadow came back. More of it this time. She was leaning over the rim with real commitment now, trying to see the bottom, which she couldn't because the light was behind her and the shaft was deep and Coin was small and dark and sitting on a ledge that didn't catch anything from this angle.

  "How long have you been down there? Can you tread water? I'm going to get help, just hold on—"

  "STATE YOUR WISH."

  "You need rope, not— what?"

  The well went quiet. Coin let it stay quiet. The water didn't move. The stones held their cold and the shaft stretched dark between them and the woman at the rim stood in the fading light waiting for an answer that wasn't coming.

  She leaned further over the edge. "Hello? I said I can get rope. There's a farmstead up the—"

  "YOUR WISH. THE COIN YOU THREW. WHAT DID YOU ASK FOR."

  She was quiet. Coin could hear her gripping the stone rim, could hear the small scrape of her fingers tightening. She was trying to figure out whether the person in the well was drowning, insane, or something else entirely, and every answer she came up with led somewhere she didn't want to go.

  "I'm getting the town guard."

  "YOU WILL NOT."

  The silence after that one was different. The other silences had been confused. This one was afraid. Coin could hear it in the way her breathing changed, in the way the shadow at the rim went very still and stayed still and didn't pull back because pulling back would mean moving and moving felt dangerous now.

  The well held its dark. The water didn't move. The stones waited. The evening was settling in around the well and the light was going soft and somewhere past the trees a cart was rolling down a road and life was happening the way life happened, ordinary and unhurried, while a woman stood frozen at the rim of a well that had told her she would not leave.

  Her breathing was starting to slow. The shadow shifted. She was gathering herself, getting ready to step back, getting ready to decide this had been a mistake and a madman and a story she'd tell someone later over wine.

  "TELL ME WHAT YOU WISHED FOR."

  She didn't answer right away. Coin could hear her breathing up there, shallow and quick, still at the rim of a well that had no business talking to her.

  "There's a merchant," she said. The words came out tight and thin. She wasn't telling Coin because she wanted to. "He's new in town. He's got money and he's using it to push people like me out. My stall. My livelihood. I can't stop him."

  "I just want him to stop."

  The copper she'd thrown sat on the bottom, barely visible now in the dimming light. One more coin in a pile of coins that had never done anything for anyone. The well held the words the way it held everything, patient and dark and deep, and the woman's breathing was the only sound left in the shaft.

  "IT WILL BE DONE."

  She made a sound. Not a word. Something smaller than that, caught in the back of her throat.

  The silence came back. The last of the amber light faded from the rim and the first stars appeared in the circle of sky above and the well went from dim to dark, slow, the way evenings got when nobody was hurrying them. The woman shifted her weight. Coin heard the stone scrape under her hands and knew she was getting ready to step back, getting ready to leave, getting ready to decide that whatever had happened at this well was over and she could go home and figure out later whether any of it was real.

  "GO HOME."

  She flinched. Coin heard it, the sharp intake and the shuffle of feet on dirt and the bucket handle rattling where she'd grabbed it.

  She was already moving. The bucket dragged through the grass behind her. Her footsteps were quick and uneven, dignity losing an argument with her legs.

  "YOU ARE WELCOME."

  The bucket hit something and went clattering off into the dark and her footsteps broke into a full sprint and Coin sat on the ledge and listened to her disappear down the path, the sound of her fading and fading until there was nothing left but the evening and the well and the deep satisfied quiet of a job well started.

  The stars came out above the rim and the water went black and the stones cooled and Coin sat on the ledge and reached.

  The spread opened up around him, alive and tangled, the whole village humming with futures that hadn't landed yet. Coin had left this alone for a while. Hadn't wanted to look. But the woman's wish was sitting on the bottom of the well and the merchant's name was in it and Coin was curious what the man looked like from this side.

  Interesting. Knotted up in half the commerce in town, his lines crossing and recrossing other people's where he'd pushed into their business. Fresh knots, tight ones, the kind that came from someone moving fast and not caring what he snagged on the way through. The woman's line ran close to one of those knots — pressed thin where his had thickened.

  Coin found where the knot was fresh enough to give. Pressed on it. The line shifted, pulling the one next to it loose, and that one pulled a third, and the whole tangle started to reorganize around the gap.

  Coin leaned on it and let it come apart.

  Coin settled back on the ledge. The dark was comfortable. The water was still.

  WISH: GRANTED.