Two days passed, and Clara didn’t talk to me.
Not directly, anyway.
She talked around me, the way you talk around furniture. She said things like "Pass the cheese" and "Thank you," but none of it was aimed at me. I was in the room, but I wasn’t part of the conversation. Maren noticed. The magistrate noticed. Neither said anything because, in this family, silence was a language, and everyone was fluent in it.
But Maren talked to me.
While Clara went quiet, Maren went in the opposite direction. She found me in the garden on the first morning, sat on the bench across from me with her tea, and asked me about the attack. She didn’t want the formal report version. She wanted to know what it had felt like.
"I just moved," I said.
"Why?"
"Because he was going for Clara, and I was standing there."
"That’s not a reason. That’s an instinct. You didn’t think about it, you didn’t plan it, you just put yourself between him and her. That’s not what a traveller does, Joseph. That’s what a person does when they care about someone."
I didn’t say anything.
She thought she was right, and that was exactly what I wanted.
On the second morning, Maren found me again. This time, she had two apples and tossed one to me without asking if I wanted it. I caught it with my left hand.
"You’re improving," she said, nodding at the catch.
"It’s still sore."
"A man shouldn’t complain."
"I’m not complaining. I was just telling you that it’s sore."
"Oh, I see."
She bit into her apple, chewing as she studied me.
"You’re one strange man, Joseph."
"I’ve been called worse."
"By whom?"
"Your sister, mostly."
Maren’s expression shifted. "My sister doesn’t think you’re strange. She probably thinks you’re cute."
"Do you think I’m cute, Maren?"
"Huh?" She took another bite, suddenly looking a little flustered. "I, um... think you’re a person."
"I hear that, but do you think I’m a cute person?"
"I think you’re a strange person," she said.
Then she looked at me, looked away, and took another bite of her apple.
The back door opened.
Clara stood in the doorway with a stack of papers in her hand. She’d clearly been heading somewhere with a purpose, but she stopped when she saw us. Her eyes moved from me to Maren, then to the bench, the apples, and finally the space between us, which wasn’t particularly large but wasn’t exactly small, either.
"Am I interrupting something?" Clara asked.
Her voice was even.
Too even.
"No," Maren said, standing up. "Joseph was telling me about his training."
"You were avo—"
"Shush, Joe."
Maren picked up her tea and walked past Clara into the house. As she passed, Clara’s eyes followed her before returning to me. There was something sharper in them now. Something more personal.
Clara studied me for another second, then walked inside without saying anything. The door closed behind her, leaving me on the bench with an apple in my hand.
I sat there, wondering how I’d managed to make two sisters angry with me in two different ways, for two different reasons, while living under the same roof.
On the third morning, Ren returned.
I saw him from the window. He rode up the hill road on his grey stallion, looking like a painting of himself. He dismounted at the gate and knocked. Clara opened the door, and they stood talking for a moment.
Even from the window, I could see that her expression had changed. It was softer, warmer. Something inside her had shifted. The ride, the gift, the mugging, and Ren being Ren. It wasn’t much, but apparently, it had been enough to make an impression.
Maren appeared behind me in the hallway.
"He’s leaving tomorrow for the forest quest," she said. "He asked her one more time this morning. She hasn’t answered yet."
"I know."
"Do you?" Maren tilted her head. "Because from where I’m standing, you’re a man watching a woman he cares about ride off with another man, and you’re standing at a window instead of going to talk to her."
I didn’t care about Clara that much. Not romantically, anyway. But for the sake of the plot, I had no choice but to pretend otherwise.
"What would you do?" I asked.
"Me? I’d keep my advantage and use it. But you’re not me, Joseph. You seem more like the kind of person who feels guilty about things, which is inconvenient."
She said it like an observation, not a judgment.
"Clara’s in her room right now, deciding whether to go with Ren or stay. You could talk to her, or you could stand here and stare at the road. Your choice."
She left.
I stood in the hallway for another moment before making mine.
Clara’s room was at the end of the hall. I knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again.
"Go away," she said from inside.
"It’s me."
There was a pause before the door opened. She wore a simple dress, her hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She looked tired, but not the kind of tired that came from missing sleep. This was the sort that came from thinking too much.
"What do you want?"
"To talk."
"I told you I needed to think."
"I know. I’m not here to change your mind. I’m here because I should’ve said something a few days ago, and I didn’t."
She studied me before stepping aside to let me in.
Her room was small, clean, and very Clara. There was a desk with papers arranged in neat stacks and a bookshelf with the books organised by size. Which, honestly, wasn’t how anyone organised books unless they had strong opinions about order.
"Say what you should’ve said," she told me.
I sat on the chair beside her desk while she took a seat on the bed.
"Everything I did at the festival, the approach, the letters, the timing, it was all strategy. I’d received information about the attack, and I wanted to make some money by saving your life. But then your father insisted I stay where he could keep an eye on me, and things got complicated."
I paused, remembering the moment I’d grabbed the attacker’s ankle.
"Grabbing that man’s ankle wasn’t part of the plan. That was me seeing someone about to get hurt and being unable to stop myself from intervening. I could see how scared, tired, and confused you were, and I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing."
Clara looked at me for a long time. The clock in the hallway ticked, and the garden outside remained quiet.
"I’m still angry," she said.
"I know."
"You knew things about the letters and the attack before they happened. You warned me. You saved me. And I still don’t know how you knew any of it. You still won’t tell me, and that makes everything you do feel like it has strings attached."
"Like I said, I wanted to make some money."
"And then what? What was your plan afterwards? To get into my pants?"
"It was. At first. Then it wasn’t."
"What changed?"
You did, apparently.
"You became a person I didn’t expect," I said instead. "You looked at me with those beautiful eyes, full of gratitude, and something changed. Right then and there, your gaze tugged at my heartstrings."
Clara looked out the window. Beyond it were the garden, the herb beds, and the bench where I usually sat.
"I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days," she said. "And I don’t know what to do about any of it. There’s Ren, and then there’s you."
"Follow your heart."
"Maybe I will."
She said it quietly before turning back to me.
"And then there’s Maren, too."
"Maren?"
"Don’t do that, Joseph. Don’t play dumb. She sits with you in the garden. She brings you apples. She calls you interesting. Do you think I don’t see that?"
"She’s gathering intelligence. That’s what she does."
"She looks at you the way a woman looks at a man, Joseph. I grew up with her. I know what that look means."
Clara’s voice remained controlled, but her eyes told a different story.
"She’s my sister."
"I know she’s your sister."
"Do you? Because she’s leaving tomorrow with Ren, and when she comes back, she’ll have even more reasons to look at you. Meanwhile, you’ll be here in my house, in my garden, eating her apples."
She stood up.
"I’m angry with you, and I’m angry with my sister, who keeps bringing you apples. I don’t know what I feel, Joseph, but I know I don’t like sharing."
She fell silent, and the room seemed to shrink around us.
For once, I understood what she was really saying.
Ren wasn’t involved in this part. It was just me, Clara, and Maren. Clara was telling me she’d made her choice. She’d chosen to stay, and she wanted that choice to mean something. She was afraid it wouldn’t.
A knock at the door broke the tension.
The magistrate’s housekeeper stood outside.
"There’s a gentleman at the gate," she said. "The one with the rather fancy horse. He’s asking for Miss Clara."
Clara straightened.
"I told him I’d have an answer by today."
She walked past me and out of the room, heading downstairs. I followed because, well, I always followed. Besides, I wanted to see Ren’s reaction.
Ren was waiting at the gate.
He saw Clara and greeted her with that warm smile of his. Then he noticed me standing behind her. The smile remained, but something about the warmth behind it changed.
"Clara," he said. "Have you decided?"
Clara looked at him, then at me, before turning back to him.
"I’m not coming."
Ren’s expression held steady. His charm didn’t disappear completely, but I saw something shift behind it, like a door closing in a house where all the windows were still open.
"I understand," he said. "You have duties to your town and your father’s household. I respect that."
"Thank you, Ren."
He nodded.
Then he looked at me one more time. Those blue eyes were focused, evaluating, and far less friendly than his smile suggested.
He mounted his stallion and rode down the hill.
Clara watched him go. She stood at the gate with her hands at her sides, neither clenched into fists nor clasped together. They were simply open.
"I’m staying," she said, almost as though she needed to reassure herself.
"Okay."
She turned and walked back towards the house. At the door, she stopped.
"Joseph."
"Yeah?"
"Don’t make me regret that."
She paused.
"And tell Maren to stop bringing you apples."
Then she went inside.
I remained at the gate, watching the road and the sky above the forest to the east. Tomorrow, Ren would ride into a forest I hadn’t written, searching for things I hadn’t designed, and he would do it without Clara.
Because Clara had chosen to stay.
With me.
Then Maren’s voice came from the window above me.
"You’re staring at the road again."
"I’m staring at the garden."
"You’re smiling this time."
I looked up. She was leaning out of the window.
"I’m going with him," she announced. "I’m going with Ren to the forest. And no, it’s not for romance or anything else. The forest lies between here and Haremdale City, and I need to get to the city. Travelling with a hero is safer than travelling alone."
"So we’re leaving at dawn?"
She nodded. "We’re leaving at dawn. Keep an eye on Clara for me, Joseph. She won’t admit she needs it, but she does."
Then she pulled back, and the window closed.
I stood in the garden as the afternoon light turned amber. Everything was changing at once. Clara was staying, Maren was leaving, and I was standing there with sore ribs, trying to figure out what came next.
Clara was jealous of Maren. Maren was interested in me. I was caught between two sisters, and I couldn’t help smiling.
My plan was slowly coming together.
For the first time since I’d woken up on a tavern floor, I finally felt like I was taking control of the narrative.
Not entirely, of course.
But you get my point.