By the time I left Myriam’s, the light had gone flat and gray, like someone had dragged a low-res filter over the village.

  I cut back across the green toward the inn. Kids’ voices drifted from behind the well, but even their games sounded subdued. My feet took the worn path to The Weary Wanderer on autopilot. My brain spun in useless circles.

  Ecosystems. Webs. Sylvana. Great. I knew the vocabulary. No actual plan.

  Warm air hit me as soon as I pushed the door open—stew, yeast, a hint of cardamom under it all. The common room sat half-empty, chairs stacked against one wall to leave space for repair supplies. A coil of rope. A broken bench waiting for Kael.

  At the corner table near the hearth, Mayor Brody hunched over a scatter of papers with his fingers buried in his thinning hair. Mara sat opposite him, small and solid, a basket of dried stems on the bench at her hip. They both looked up when the door creaked.

  Brody’s face flickered through relief, guilt, calculation in about two seconds.

  “Emily. We were just… come here a moment, if you’ve the time.”

  Mara gave me a once-over, eyes taking in the set of my shoulders.

  “You look like a girl walking with rocks in her pockets. Sit. The stew’s better than your thoughts.”

  I pulled a chair in and dropped onto it.

  “What’s the current disaster briefing?”

  Brody drew one of the papers closer, eyes following columns that looked like some medieval version of an Excel sheet. Rows of symbols—wheat stalks, little barrels, circles for heads of cattle.

  “I’ve been going over the crop counts again. Kael went with Harn to check the far fields this morning.” He tapped a thumb against one column. “A third of the barley’s gone. Flattened when the boars broke through last month, then the rain came too hard on what was left. The south orchard lost nearly all the early fruit to that hailstorm.”

  I stared at the marks, then at his face.

  “A third total, or a third of several fields?”

  His mouth tightened.

  “A third of what we would call a normal year. Maybe a little more. And that’s before we talk spoilage, or what we’ll need to plant in spring.”

  Mara nudged one of the dried stems with a knuckle.

  “And before we talk about the hands missing from those fields while they smear tree-sap on your miracle fence.”

  The word “miracle” sounded like a compliment and a complaint at once.

  Brody blew out a breath.

  “The fence is worth it. We all know that. The boar last week proved it—if that had been the old fence, we’d be counting graves.”

  “But,” I finished, “every hour someone’s painting resin and hammering, they’re not weeding or replanting.”

  He nodded, throat working.

  “Yes. We’re patching the skin while the patient bleeds inside. I keep thinking if we just work harder…” His hand opened helplessly over the papers. “But there are only so many daylight hours.”

  I shifted the nearest sheet toward me.

  “How much grain is already stored?”

  “Enough to feed everyone through mid-winter if we’re careful,” Brody answered at once, then hesitated. “Less if we get more mouths from the road. We always do, when times are lean elsewhere.”

  “And Tamsin’s news means ‘elsewhere’ is already ugly.”

  “Her last trip through Dawnsbridge, she said their granaries were low before the harvest even came in,” he muttered. “Bandits, blight, some caravan with seed never arrived. If larger towns are short…” His eyes closed for a second. “People will come here. Or they’ll die where they stand. Neither sits well with me.”

  My brain tried to build a flowchart that only ended with arrows labelled die, starve, fight. I pushed it aside.

  “Okay. So we need to stretch what you have, gather more, and find ways to get food from outside. All three, or you’re right, it’s just moving piles around.”

  Mara leaned her elbows on the table.

  “I’ve started a list. There are berries still in the north thickets, if we get them before the frosts bite too deep. Rosehips, hawthorn, elder. Not much meat on them, but they keep scurvy from chewing on people’s gums come late winter. There’s chickweed and dandelion greens that can be dried, comfrey roots to hang in the lofts.” Her mouth pressed together. “Mushrooms, in the right hollows. I’ll go for those myself; I don’t trust half the village not to poison themselves.”

  “Preservation?” I asked.

  “Drying racks we can rig behind my cottage and the inn,” she answered. “Clay jars for pickling, if Elspeth can spare the vinegar. I can show folk how to make fruit leathers. Children work well for that—small hands, patient enough if you bribe them with the scraps.”

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  Brody’s eyes warmed a little.

  “We used to do that more, when I was a boy. Fell out of the habit when the roads were safer and flour cheaper.”

  Mara clicked her tongue.

  “Comfort makes people soft. No offense.”

  “Some taken,” he muttered, but his gaze stayed distant, tracking numbers only he saw.

  I rubbed my knuckles over the table.

  “I can help with the plant side, at least. My herb lore’s decent. But that still sounds like we’re adding vitamins, not calories. Berries and greens are great, but they won’t fill stomachs in late snow.”

  “What fills stomachs is bread, tubers, and meat,” Mara agreed. “Which brings us back to your fence taking boys out of the potato rows.”

  “And to the fact that even Beakly can’t drag in enough boar to feed two towns,” I added.

  Brody looked sharply at me.

  “You’ve been thinking about Dawnsbridge too.”

  “Hard not to, after Tamsin’s little apocalypse tour.” I hesitated, then straightened. “Speaking of her. There’s… another angle.”

  Both of them focused on me in that unnerving, physician-breaking-bad-news way I usually reserved for other people.

  “I’ve made an agreement with Tamsin,” I went on. “Well. The outlines of one. She wants something we can make that travels light and sells high. I want coin the village can use to buy food or seed when opportunity shows up. We meet in the middle.”

  Mara’s brows climbed.

  “You’re trading away our resin?”

  “No. The resin stays on the fence.” I reached for one of the glowgourd seeds I’d absentmindedly kept in my pocket since the last expedition, rolled it between thumb and forefinger. “This is about by-products. And buttons.”

  Brody blinked.

  “Buttons.”

  “Stay with me.” I drew a little circle on the table. “We already butcher boar when we can. Right now you render fat, salt meat, maybe carve a few bone dice for Finn and his friends, right?”

  He grimaced.

  “Those dice caused three fights last week.”

  “Exactly. Indestructible entertainment. But bones and scrap wood can become something more useful than gambling aids. We can set up a few carving stations in empty corners—Kael or one of his apprentices can fashion simple button molds. Round blanks, pierced with two or four holes. Small enough that precision matters more than strength.”

  Mara’s eyes narrowed in calculation.

  “Old hands could do that,” she murmured. “The ones whose backs won’t let them haul logs any more, but who still fidget if you sit them still too long.”

  “Children too,” I added. “Supervised. It’s detailed work, but not dangerous if we’re careful with the knives. We teach them to make size-standard buttons. Tamsin takes little sacks of them to bigger towns, sells them to clothiers, sailors, anyone who hates losing their trousers in a strong wind.”

  Brody’s fingers drummed the table.

  “That earns coin, yes. But how much?”

  “Enough that Tamsin perked up when I mentioned it.” I shifted to the other half of the idea. “And then there are glowgourds. You’ve seen the resin process. We pour out the juice, use the pulp. Tamsin watched throw out the juice and about chewed her own scarf.”

  Mara’s mouth twitched.

  “She would. Waste offends her purse.”

  “Turns out that juice, with a few stabilisers—salt, a bit of ash—can be bottled as portable light.” I mimed shaking a vial. “You trap it in glass, seal it with wax. When you shake it, it glows for hours without flame. Let it rest in the dark, it recovers some of that glow.”

  Brody’s eyes widened.

  “Non-burning lamps. For miners. For ships.”

  “For anyone going into a warg den who doesn’t want to juggle torches,” I added. “Tamsin swore she can sell every vial we can make to caravan bosses and captains. Glass is the limiting factor, but she can bring vials next time through in exchange for our first batch.”

  Mara nodded slowly.

  “The mixing and sealing can be done at a kitchen table,” she said. “No heavy lifting except stirring the batch. Good work for widows, for girls whose fathers don’t send them to the forest.”

  “And if we write the steps down,” I said, “anyone can learn. I can run small classes here at the inn. We turn spare evenings into little production lines.”

  Brody’s shoulders had started to unknot as I spoke. Now they slumped again.

  “It’s clever. Truly.” His fingers rested on the edge of the ledger. “It gives tasks to those who feel useless, brings coin into hands that rarely see any. But coin…” He trailed off, looking at the mark for grain again. “Coin is only good if there is food to buy. If Dawnsbridge’s granaries are as bare as Tamsin thinks, then more coin just means we pay more for the same sack of flour. Or for none at all.”

  “Money doesn’t change math,” I muttered. “If there are only a hundred loaves in the region, there are only a hundred loaves.”

  Mara snorted. “We can’t eat silver. We can’t cook buttons.”

  “It still matters,” I argued, leaning forward. “If some merchant comes through with seed or dried beans, we’ll be able to buy enough for spring planting. If bandits demand a ‘toll’ on the road, better to hand them a pouch of coin than a third of our stored grain. We need something tradable that isn’t food.”

  Brody rubbed his jaw, thinking.

  “You’re right. And I won’t say no to giving the old ones work that makes them feel… necessary.” The word came out soft, like it hurt. “I’ve watched too many good men sit by the fire and rot because their shoulders gave out before their pride did.”

  Mara’s gaze flicked to him, then to me.

  “So we do all of it. Berries and greens for the lean months, buttons and glow-vials for trade, fence work to keep the boars from eating what’s left.”

  “And hunting,” I added. “Beakly and I can take more trips out. Maybe a roster of younger hunters, learn the safer routes. If we can dry meat into jerky, it stretches further.”

  Mara pursed her lips.

  “Careful with that. Push the forest too hard and Sylvana pushes back.”

  “I just had a very pointed lecture about balance,” I answered. “I’m not eager to pick a fight with the local ecosystem goddess.”

  Brody gave me a baffled look, then shook his head as if filing that under “priest business.”

  “We’ll need to explain this to the council,” he said. “Not just the need, but the… structure. Who makes what. Where it goes. People get touchy when they think someone else profits more from shared work.”

  “So we make it transparent,” I replied. “Public ledger for trade goods. Everyone who carves a button, mixes a vial, gets a tally next to their name. When Tamsin pays out, we split fairly—some for the village stores, some for individual purses.”

  Mara tapped the table.

  “And we set limits. No one skipping field work because they prefer sitting by the fire scratching bone all day.”

  “Agreed.” I pulled one of Brody’s blank scraps toward me, grabbed the stub of charcoal he’d left. “Let’s sketch it. Basic responsibilities, who I’ll teach first, how many vials we can realistically manage before Tamsin’s next pass.”

  Brody watched the initial lines appear, the shape of a plan that wasn’t quite salvation, but wasn’t nothing either.

  “It might not be enough,” he murmured. “Not if the snows come early. Not if the bandits grow bold. Not if…” His throat closed around the rest.

  I met his eyes.

  “It’s something. And something beats standing still.”

  Mara’s rough hand landed briefly on my wrist, then withdrew.

  “Stones in a wall,” she said. “Not enough yet to keep the wind out, but more than we had this morning. We’ll find the rest or freeze trying.”

  “That’s a cheerful metric.”

  “It’s an honest one.”

  I drew another line on the page. Buttons. Vials. Berries. Batches of resin. The beginnings of a map through a winter none of us felt ready to meet.