Jane wasn’t sure what Bella was expecting from her cleaning abilities. Luckily, Bella turned out to be a start-at-the-bottom-and-work-your-way-up type of girl who had endless patience for teaching. From the moment Jane grabbed the broom, Bella shifted into the mode of a gentle instructor. She corrected Jane’s grip, then her brushing motion, and finally her tactical approach to the whole room.

  Sweeping took longer than Jane had imagined it would, mostly because maneuvering around the table legs and counters required a certain kind of practiced motion she hadn’t mastered yet. More than once, she was tempted to cheat a bit with magic. Bella discouraged her, simply by being the observant kind of person who would probably notice.

  While Jane swept, Bella worked on emptying whatever remnant of ash was left in the ovens, shoveling it out with a seasoned efficiency that Jane assumed would take years to gain. After that, she filled Jane’s bucket with water, mixed in some of the soap powder from Jane’s shopping trip, and began to scrub the counters.

  “Usually, you wouldn’t use soap right on the wood like this. But as dirty and dusty as these are, it’s probably a good idea to just use a little and then oil them after.”

  Bella managed to do both and get started on the mopping before Jane had fully gotten the hang of sweeping. That felt like a step too far, at least to Jane’s sensibilities. Bella was helping of her own accord. It seemed unfair for her to be the last one working.

  “I can finish mopping,” Jane said. “Since it’s the only thing left.”

  Bella didn’t even pause. “I’ve got this. Why don’t you start upstairs? I’m sure there’s plenty of dust left there, too.”

  Jane dug deep, looking for an explanation of how she, an exhausted girl just off a trip of many days and possessing no cleaning tools, had somehow rendered the entire upstairs tidy. She came up blank.

  Taking a chance, she decided to be honest, if not completely forthcoming.

  “It’s already done,” she said. “I did it last night before bed. There’s just a little bit left to do, and it will be good practice for me tomorrow. I don’t think Allen will be going upstairs, anyway.”

  “Well, I should hope not.”

  Though Bella’s tone was light, she had clearly caught something odd in the story, after all. Jane could see confusion in the woman’s eyes for a moment. Then, however, she saw a flash of something else wipe the confusion away. It was so quick that Jane couldn’t identify it. She thought it could have been anything from pity to understanding to simple, beautiful mercy.

  Regardless, Bella insisted on continuing her task. The mopping took the more experienced woman a fraction of the time it would have taken Jane. After that, they worked together to oil all the remaining wooden surfaces. Since this was rag-work, Jane could actually help at a reasonable pace.

  When they finished, they both leaned against the counter and surveyed their handiwork. Jane was so happy that she briefly couldn’t speak. While the building was not yet entirely spotless, it had reached the point where Jane could now keep it up herself, magic-free, in a few minutes a day.

  “Well, that’s that.” Bella nodded in satisfaction at the glistening wood all around her. “Yup. It’s like a new place.”

  “It really is. It’s so beautiful. It even seems brighter.”

  “That’s the sun coming down and lining up with the windows, mostly, but yeah. It’s a good building. And if the noise coming down the street is any indication, I think it’s about time for me to leave. Your tinker is coming.”

  “Leave?” Jane’s momentary panic at the thought was a surprise even to her. “You aren’t going to stay? I’ll be alone with him?”

  Bella laughed gleefully and bumped Jane with her shoulder. Then she opened a closet, shoved the broom and mop inside, and closed the door.

  “Yes, Jane. That’s the point. It’s always your choice whether or not you like a man, you know. If you decide you don’t, Allen is a perfect gentleman about that kind of thing. He’ll just be a tinker then. But if you don’t decide that, I don’t want to get in your way. Come by for breakfast tomorrow, okay? I want to know what happened.”

  Bella turned towards the door and was actually opening it before Jane could bring herself to ask the important question, the one that had been bothering her all afternoon.

  “Bella? Why are you doing all this?” Jane gestured at the shop, and even at herself. “We just met.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. I decided we were friends this morning. You didn’t notice?”

  Bella swept down the street, whistling and greeting folks as the sound of an overloaded wagon drew nearer.

  Jane realized with a start that she had noticed. She hadn’t been truly surprised when she came home and found Bella waiting for her there. At some point during that amazing breakfast, the woman had changed from a restaurant proprietor to a friend. Someone Jane thought of as Bella, without any other modifiers.

  Just like that? she thought, vaguely aware that the wagon was coming to a stop outside her shop now. She could hear the handbrake complaining as it tried to bring the momentum of all the goods, wagon, and driver to a halt. That’s how easy it is to make friends?

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  It seemed hard to believe that one of her goals for coming here was already accomplished. She had been worried it would never happen. She had prepared herself to spend weeks and months trying to make it happen. And now, with no effort at all, she had a friend. Not just a friend, but one she actually liked, and who seemed to like her.

  She was so wrapped up in the warmth of this realization that Allen was able to make it all the way to her door, poke his head inside, and call for her before she remembered she was supposed to be nervous about all this.

  “Hi!” Jane waved Allen in, feeling slightly giddy. “You’ve been in here before, right?”

  “Sure. Lots of times. This was the best bakery in the city, you know? That was always worth the walk.” Allen set a heavy crate on the counter and opened it, revealing a stack of long, flat pans. “These are baking pans. I had a lot of them anyway, and they were on clearance, so I figured having plenty of them wouldn’t hurt. I’ll be right back with some other things.”

  Bella had been right about Allen. He liked the things he made, and when it was time for business, he was all business. Jane appreciated this, but she also couldn’t help admiring him as he hefted crate after crate onto the counter.

  She added another entry to the things-she-knew-about-Allen list in her mind, right under ‘Tinker’ and ‘Very honest.’ The new entry, if she had to label it accurately, said something like: ‘Strong. And wears it well. Oh my.’

  “How is it being a tinker?” she asked as he brought in the last crate. “I don’t think they had that job in the capital. Or I never heard of it.”

  “Oh, they probably had people like me. Lots of people run this-and-that shops. Tinker is almost more of a nickname.”

  “Oh? How did you get it?”

  Allen thumped down the crate and wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead. “You really want to know?”

  “I do,” Jane assured him. “I’m new here, remember? Anything I can learn helps.”

  “It’s not that interesting, really. When I was first getting started, I wasn’t able to make all these things, but I was pretty good at figuring out how to fix things. I convinced people to let me do repair work, and I did it cheap. It just took me a long time to figure out how to approach new jobs. I had to tinker on them.”

  “Ah. Someone mentioned that, and the name stuck?”

  “Something like that.” He gave her another one of those smiles, confirming that she was still not even close to building up an immunity. “What about you? Any weird professional nicknames following you around?”

  Archmage Candidate Jane Laprasia, Master of Four Elements, Summoner of Shades fit the bill, but Jane would have sooner told Allen she was an outhouse mucker than her actual title.

  “Just Jane,” she decided. “Please. I’d be happier if that was all that followed me from the capital.”

  Allen nodded, then slapped the top of the crate nearest to him. “Let’s get these unloaded. I promise there’s a lot of fun stuff in here.”

  He wasn’t wrong. In one afternoon, Allen had somehow managed to get all the tools and items needed for running a full bakery, including dozens of little things he didn’t make himself and had sourced from elsewhere. There were measuring cups and spoons, whisks and bowls, pots and pans, and no end of little gadgets Jane would have to learn the purpose of later.

  The best part was that almost nothing was magical. Allen had picked up some fuel logs on the way that were magically processed to burn clean and long, as well a lightly enchanted storage box for perishable ingredients that made a single block of ice last for weeks. These were normal kinds of magic, though, to the extent that magic ever could be normal. Almost every home used the same kinds of fuel and storage, whether the people who lived in it were archmages or bricklayers.

  Having helped to empty the house, Allen turned out to have a pretty good idea not only of what was needed to fill it back up, but also where various things went. He directed Jane as well as his memory allowed. Together, they organized all the items in the huge kitchen, hanging up spatulas and whisks and hiding pans and bowls in little alcoves made just for that purpose.

  The difference wasn’t subtle. The space had hardly looked like anything an hour ago, and now it was beginning to look like a bakery. There were even some actual ingredients on the table, courtesy of Allen. He had an apparent habit of buying anything his customers might need on the hope that his hunches would prove correct.

  For the second time that day, Jane found herself speechless as she looked around the room. It had been so dead and empty that morning. Then she, Bella, and now Allen had brought it back to life.

  It’s like magic, she mused. Maybe even better.

  “Now, none of this was cheap,” Allen warned her as he handed over the bill. “I’ll buy back anything you don’t use, no questions asked, and even anything you use. Just know I’m not… you know.”

  “I don’t think you are trying to oversell me, Allen.” Jane reached up to the wall and affectionately touched a few of the hanging tools. “I don’t think you’d do anything like that.”

  Her confidence seemed to surprise Allen. He certainly looked at her rather thoughtfully for a moment. She simply smiled, studied the bill, and counted out coins for him.

  It really wasn’t cheap. The bag of coins from her aunt, which had seemed so inexhaustible that morning, had taken a serious dent. She was sure Allen wasn’t lying about most of these tools being returnable, but she also knew that setting herself up for almost any business could realistically drain her resources.

  She had a few weeks of supplies left. Perhaps. After that, she’d have to be doing something productive. Something that made enough money to cover her bills.

  “Oof.” Jane sighed as she stored the bag behind the counter. “I think I always knew I’d have to learn how to do something, but I don’t think I ever actually realized it, if that makes sense.”

  “It does seem like a big job. But I think you can do it. You seem like the kind of person who learns things quickly.” Allen’s eyes widened as he seemed to remember something. “Oh, yeah! I got you a gift.”

  Before Jane could say anything, Allen ran out to his wagon again and came back with a book in simple binding.

  “It's a recipe book,” he explained, holding it out to her. “For baking. I saw it while I was trying to find the rest of your things. I don’t know if it’s good. Not my territory. But I thought you might get some use out of it? Maybe?”

  Something about Allen’s look was so hopeful that Jane couldn’t help but smile. He had seen this, thought of her, and bought it for her, and now it was obviously important to him that she liked it.

  Luckily, liking it was no burden. She felt her neck heating up as she accepted the precious object from him, opened it, and glanced at the pages.

  “Thank you, Allen. I love it.” Closing the book, she held it tightly to her chest. “It’s very nice. Perfect, in fact. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome!” Allen’s face lit up so bright, Jane worried it might actually burn down her new home. “I have to go now, for work things. Sorry. I’d like to stay. I hope we bump into each other again soon.”

  “I’d like that too. I wouldn’t worry about it. I bet Bella is way ahead of us.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” She waved goodbye with another smile that seemed to radiate from her entire being. “Thanks, Allen.”