Chapter 2 Frost & Thread

"I am not asking you to pay the entire balance today," the supplier said, holding a worn ledger against his chest as though Nora might try to snatch it from him. "But I cannot keep sending you soap, cleaning salts, and restoration crystals when your grandmother's account has been overdue for nearly a year."

By eight that morning, Nora had already discovered three problems, and this elderly wizard standing in her doorway, looking personally offended by her existence, was the third. The laundry had almost no cleaning supplies left. The largest washing machine refused to start. And somehow her grandmother had managed to owe enough money to make a man this composed show up before sunrise to collect it.

Nora glanced past him at the broken machine in the corner. "I understand."

"You need the supplies to operate."

"I understand that too."

He sighed, the sound heavy with years of dealing with unreliable accounts. "Then you understand why I have to stop deliveries."

She forced herself not to look at the stack of clothes waiting on the counter behind her, though she could feel their presence like a countdown. "How much does she owe?"

When he named the amount, her stomach tightened. It was far more than she'd expected, more than the few coins currently sitting in her grandmother's cash drawer could ever hope to cover.

"I can pay part of it today," she offered, though even as she said it she wasn't entirely sure how. "Give me two weeks for the rest."

He shook his head slowly. "Your grandmother was a good customer. That is the only reason I'm even considering it." He closed the ledger with a soft thud. "I will give you until the end of the week."

Nora nodded and thanked him, though panic had already begun crawling up her chest before he'd even turned to leave. When the door shut behind him, she locked it and pressed her back against the wood for a long moment. Three days. She had been in Moonvale barely a full day, and the business was already threatening to swallow her whole.

She walked back to the counter and pulled open the drawer where her grandmother had kept the shop's money, hoping against reason that she'd somehow missed something the night before. A few silver coins. Two copper pieces. And a single button that rolled slightly when she nudged it, as if offering itself as payment.

"That isn't money," she muttered, closing the drawer before she could be tempted to argue with an inanimate object about currency.

A knock sounded at the door, and when she looked up, Ramon Warren stood outside in a dark green coat, his hair arranged with the same careful precision as the day before. Seeing him eased the tightness in her chest in a way she immediately resented.

She opened the door anyway. "You're early."

"Am I?" He glanced at the clock above the counter. "I had work nearby."

He stepped inside carrying two large garment bags, setting them carefully on the counter. "I brought these. I was told you might need more customers."

"Who told you that?"

"No one," he admitted. "You look like someone who needs customers."

"Are you insulting me?"

"I'm making an observation."

"That's worse," she said, but a quiet laugh escaped him before he could argue the point, and she turned away quickly so he wouldn't catch her smiling. His gaze drifted across the empty shelves, the broken machine, and finally landed on the ledger still open on the counter. His expression shifted.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Nora."

"You've known me for just one day. You can't possibly know when I'm lying, Can you?"

"I can when you're standing beside an unpaid account and pretending everything is fine."

She exhaled and told him about the supplier, about the deadline, watching his face carefully for the moment he'd offer money she couldn't accept. It came quickly.

"I intend to keep bringing you clothes," he said, when she asked why any of it should matter to him, and the simple honesty of the answer left her strangely quiet. When he offered her a loan a moment later, she refused before he'd even named the amount.

"I want this place to succeed because I built it back up," she told him, "not because a wealthy fae decided to rescue me."

Something shifted in his eyes, something that looked almost like respect. "Fair enough," he said, and nodded instead of arguing, which surprised her more than any protest could have.

He'd brought her a suit with no enchantment damage at all, nothing wrong with it beyond ordinary wear, and when she accused him of simply not wanting to wash his own clothes, he didn't bother denying it. She laughed at that, properly laughed, and spent the next hour working while he lingered at the counter, watching her with an attention she called observing and he happily called staring.

It was the broken washing machine that interrupted the quiet. It clicked once, shuddered, and went still, and when Ramon crouched beside it to examine the mechanism, he offered her something she hadn't expected: not money, but a name. Theo, a wizard who repaired enchanted machinery and owed Ramon a favor. It was a smaller kindness than a loan, and somehow easier to accept.

She had just agreed to it when the bell above the door rang, and a woman stepped inside wearing a cream-colored witch's robe embroidered with silver flowers, carrying a stack of bright blue flyers. She set one on the counter, and Nora read the words printed across it. Frost and Thread. Moonvale's finest magical garment care. Grand opening this Saturday, two streets away.

"Vivian Frost," the woman said, smiling politely. "I own the shop." Her eyes moved to Ramon, and her smile changed shape entirely. "Mr. Warren. I didn't realize you were already a customer."

"I am," Ramon said, and something passed between them that Nora couldn't quite read.

Vivian turned back to her, still smiling. "Then I suppose we have something in common. We both want the same customers." She left as quickly as she'd arrived, and the little shop felt smaller and quieter once the door swung shut behind her.

"Don't worry about her," Ramon said.

"I'm not," Nora lied, folding the flyer and setting it beside the unpaid ledger. She had been open for one day, and she already had competition. "If she wants the customers," she said, more to herself than to him, "she'll have to earn them."

Across the street, a delivery cart pulled up outside a building Nora hadn't even noticed the day before, and a large sign was being lifted into place above the door. Frost and Thread, gleaming in fresh paint, with garment bags already being carried inside by the armful.

Vivian Frost, it seemed, had been preparing for this long before Nora ever set foot back in Moonvale.