The Dawn Rep

Olwen woke with the sun striping the bed in yellow bars and no spell left in her skin. That was the first thing she noticed, actually. The enchantment had worn off sometime in the small hours, the way hired spells did, and what remained underneath was just her, warm and loose and naked in somebody else's sheets.

Somebody else's very nice sheets.

She lay still for a minute and took stock. Her thighs ached in the good way. Her hair was a disaster she could feel without looking. And the room smelled like last night, candle wax and him, some cedar thing he probably put in his hair on purpose.

"Three years," she said to the ceiling. "Three years and I finally catch that merchant's booth again and it turns out the silk man was a mage renting out enchantments by the hour."

The ceiling had no comment.

She had been twenty at that festival, three years back now, and she'd spent one wild night with a silk merchant whose name she never even got properly. She'd thought about that night more times than she'd admit to her guild sisters. Then yesterday, her last day in Thorn-on-Carrack before the guild shipped her off to the far circuit, she'd walked past the enchanted booths on the low bridge, seen a familiar face at a utility stall, and done something completely out of character.

She'd asked him for a simple pleasure-spell. Fully licensed, posted rates and everything. And then she'd asked, blushing like an apprentice, if he ever did anything that wasn't on the rate sheet.

He did.

And now it was dawn, she was twenty-three, and in about four hours a guild barge was going to take her downriver and out of this town for good.

She rolled over. Empty half of the bed, still warm. On the nightstand, propped against the lamp, was a note in quick, sloppy handwriting.

"Breakfast in the potion-shop. Don't leave yet."

Under it, a second line, smaller.

"The good rolls are on me. N."

Olwen read it twice and felt something pull in her chest that had absolutely nothing to do with the guild's departure schedule and everything to do with the fact that he'd written "don't leave yet" instead of "thanks for the business."

"Well, that's inconvenient," she told the ceiling.

She got up, found her shift where it had ended up over the chair, and looked out the window. The room sat above a potion-seller's shop on the market lane, and from here she could see the Carrack flashing between the roofs, both bridges already busy. Down below, a sign swung in the morning air. The shop's shutters were open. Somebody was grinding something.

She washed her face in the basin, gave up on her hair, and went downstairs.

* * *

The shop smelled like everything at once, which was apparently how potion shops worked. Bitter roots, sweet syrups, something sharp that made her eyes water until she got used to it. Nico stood behind the counter helping Mother Senn with a jar of something blue, and when he saw Olwen come down the stairs he went very still for half a second.

"There's your girl," the old woman said, cackling. "Told you she'd come down eventually."

"Hush, Mother Senn," Nico said, but his ears had gone red. "Olwen. You slept."

"I did. Eventually." She leaned on the counter like she belonged there. "Those sheets are a crime, by the way. What do you wash them with?"

"Same soap as everyone."

"Liar. I smelled cedar."

"That's my hair oil."

"See, admitted it. On purpose." She grinned at him and he grinned back, and Mother Senn looked between them like she was watching a play.

"Blue elder," the old woman prompted, tapping the counter. "Focus, boy."

"Sorry." He counted coins, wrapped the jar, sent the woman off with a nod, and then it was just the two of them and a tray of rolls he'd clearly gone out for at dawn, because nobody in Thorn-on-Carrack had rolls like that at home.

"Sit," he said. "The good ones are the ones with the plum inside. Don't let the plain ones fool you."

"You bought out a whole tray."

"I bought six rolls."

"For two people."

"You looked like a six-roll morning from up here." He came around the counter with two cups of something steaming and set them down. "Tea. It's just tea. If you wanted anything fancier that's a different license and honestly I'm off duty."

"Are you? Off duty?"

"Until noon." He sat down across from her, and for a second neither of them quite knew what to do with their hands. Then she broke her roll in half and the moment passed.

"So," she said. "Last night."

"Last night," he agreed.

"Are we going to pretend it was just a very thorough spell consultation?"

"I don't think I can pretend that. My rate sheet doesn't cover half of it." He tore his own roll apart. "Look, I rent out spells by the hour. It pays well and it's honest. Most mornings the spell is done and the client goes home. That's the arrangement, and it's fine. And I made the note anyway, so."

"So."

"So I broke my own rule a little. Sorry if that's heavy before tea."

"It's not heavy." She took a sip. "It's the opposite of heavy. It's the most not-heavy thing anyone's done for me in about two years of circuits."

He studied her. "The guild's moving you. I heard it at the stalls yesterday, everyone knows the rep schedule before the rep does."

"Far circuit. Down past Solstice lands, eighteen months, maybe two years if I do well." She said it lightly and it didn't come out lightly. "Which is why last night was supposed to be a one-time thing. A send-off. I even told myself that on the bridge, standing at your stall, trying to act like a professional client."

"And how did that work out?"

"I booked your spell, didn't I."

"You did." He leaned back. "Can I say a thing that might be too honest for breakfast?"

"Say it anyway."

"I spent two years, when I was twenty-two, with someone who wanted me secret. A councillor's spouse. Great arrangement on paper, terrible in practice. I swore after that I'd keep it simple. Pay, spell, goodbye. And last night you asked me my actual name halfway through and it wrecked me a bit, because nobody's bothered in a while."

Olwen put her roll down. "Nico. That's your name."

"That's my name."

"Nico, I asked because it's your name, not because I was collecting data." She laughed. "You absolute disaster. You do know you're allowed to be a person, right? Even in this line of work."

"That's what the note was about, I suppose." He rubbed at a spot on the counter that didn't need rubbing. "Anyway. You've got a barge at midday."

"I've got a barge at midday," she agreed, and the words landed in the room like a dropped jar.

They ate in silence for a moment. Then Nico said, "So that's four hours."

"About that, yes."

"And the spell's long gone. You're feeling the plain version of a morning after. No enchantment in it."

"I noticed." She looked at him over her cup. "It's still a good morning, is the thing. Weirdly good."

His ears went red again. "Well then. Since you're here and I'm off duty, and since we've got four hours, would you like to come back upstairs? Not on the rate sheet this time. Just... because you'd like to and I'd like to and we've both got until noon."

Olwen set her cup down slow.

"That," she said, "is the first booking anyone's ever offered me for free."

"That's the only kind I want to offer you."

"Say it plainer. I'm a trade rep, I need terms."

"Come back to bed with me, Olwen. Yes or no."

"Yes," she said, already standing. "Obviously yes. But I'm taking the plum roll for the walk upstairs."

"Take two."

"Greedy."

"Four-hour morning," he said, following her. "I'm budgeting."

Upstairs the room was warm and the sheets did their thing again, Nico had genuinely the nicest sheets Olwen had ever been ruined in. They took their time. Nobody was counting spell-hours now, so there was no clock in it, and that changed the whole shape of the thing. He asked before he touched, she said yes before he finished asking, and somewhere in the middle of it she stopped counting hours entirely.

After, they lay there with the shutters open and the river noise coming up through the floor, and she thought, well, there it is. That's the send-off. That's better than the send-off she gave herself three years ago with the silk merchant at the festival, and she didn't even have to be drunk for this one.

"I need to get up," she said eventually. "I have to pack. My trunk is still at the guild house."

"Trunks can wait."

"Trunks cannot wait. The barge crew loads at eleven and if my trunk's not on it they leave it, and then I'm doing the far circuit with one spare shift and a hairbrush."

"That's a grim picture."

"Isn't it."

He laughed into the pillow. "Go on then. I'll be up in a minute. There's a basin and there's soap and there's, hm, there's a comb, if you don't mind sharing a comb with a mage."

"I've shared worse things with you this morning."

"Olwen."

"What! You were thinking it too."

So she got up. She found her shift where it had ended up, which was over the back of a chair and partly on the floor, and she stood at the basin and did the washing up slow, because her body wanted looking at.

There were marks. Not bruises, exactly. The spellwork always left faint traces, that was normal, she'd felt plenty of pleasure-charms in her time on the road and seen the silver smudges they left along the wrists or the back of the neck. But these were different. These ran along her ribs, both sides, like someone had drawn her carefully and pressed a bit too hard. And there was one at the base of her throat that she was fairly sure had no business being there at all, because that spot hadn't come near any sigil she'd ever seen.

"Hey," she said over her shoulder. "Your spell left graffiti."

He was sitting up in the bed, hair full of cedar oil and sleep. "What kind of graffiti?"

"The rib kind. Two lines of it. And something at my throat that looks like a rune somebody dropped."

He came and looked, because of course he did, and he went quiet in a way she didn't love.

"That's not standard," he admitted. "Standard is the wrist smudge. Maybe the neck. That's..." He touched the mark at her throat, lightly, asking first with his fingers hovering, and she nodded, so he touched. "That's a holding-sigil. Offshoot of what I cast, but it shouldn't have moved there."

"Should I be worried?"

"No. It fades in a day or two. It just means the spell took to you harder than it takes to most people." He said it as one might read a weather report, but his ears had gone red again.

"Harder than most people."

"The spell. Not me."

"Sure. The spell."

"The spell," he said, very firmly, and went to find his shirt.

* * *

By the time the basin water had gone lukewarm, Nico had announced he was going downstairs to fetch something and had disappeared, leaving Olwen alone in a room that smelled faintly of cedar and last night. She took her time dressing, because there was nothing to hurry toward except a barge, and barges were the enemy today.

She looked at herself in his little mirror. Guild rep, twenty-three years old, far circuit ahead of her, eighteen months minimum. She counted the marks again. Ribs, throat, one along her hip she'd missed the first time. She'd had lovers leave fingerprints on her before. She'd never had one leave runes.

The free hour had been the messy one. She kept turning that over. The spell hours had been excellent, frankly worth every guild coin and she intended to note it in her ledger under miscellaneous. But the hours she'd stayed for after, the ones no contract named, those had been the ones where he'd asked her things. Where she'd asked him things. Where halfway through he'd said, can I, and she'd said, yes, obviously, what do you think I stayed for, and he'd said, I like to hear it, and she'd liked saying it. That was messier than any sigil.

She heard him on the stairs. Two cups, and this time not tea, because she could smell it from across the room.

"Spiced milk?" she said.

"Spiced milk. There's a woman on the market lane who does it and