Kalan held Rafa's hand as he followed the kids wandering through the market. I walked a couple of steps behind them, keeping their backs in sight.
Torra was laughing and waving at me to walk faster, already stopped in front of a dessert shop, nose practically pressed to the display.
Sweets and cakes of every variety filled the window. The stall and shop owners in this part of the market had grown familiar with Torra and me over the past months.
Not with my real face, though. I had illusion magic running whenever I stepped outside the settlement. Something I had set to activate automatically, like a second skin.
"Leigh, they have new cakes." Torra said, eyes wide.
The shop owner, Amanda, was already opening the door for him. She was always glad to see Torra come back.
I had set a fixed schedule for the capital trips. Once a month. And when I shopped, I went all out regardless of the cost. Amanda had figured that out early on. She had also figured out that whatever Torra stopped to look at, I purchased. All of it.
"Torra, sweetie. So glad you're back. We have new varieties this time. Winter berries just came in two days ago and we made them into fillings for some of the breads." She smiled and led him straight to a separate display of fresh breads and desserts she had clearly set aside with him in mind.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
What caught her attention this time though was how we were dressed. No coats. No scarves. Just shirts with simple, clean designs. Comfortable pants cut differently from anything Amlada's market was used to seeing. No tunics draped over the top, no layering for warmth.
I had been passing designs to Oliver and Olivia for months now. Styles from my past life. The kind of clothes I wore in a penthouse when no one was watching, or outside a boardroom when I could finally just be myself. Shirts. Comfortable pants. Clean lines and nothing unnecessary.
Those memories were turning out to be useful in more ways than one.
And now here I was, wearing them in a different world entirely, standing in a bakery in the middle of winter.
"Ah... may I ask something?" Amanda's curiosity finally got the better of her. She looked at the children with genuine concern. "Aren't you all cold?"
She was worried they would catch something, dressed that light in the middle of winter.
"They're fine. We're fine. The cold doesn't bother us." I said, already looking past her at what Torra and Rafa were pointing at and discussing between themselves.
Kalan had drifted toward the display cases on his own, pulled in by the smell. He was still taking everything in with that quiet amazement he'd had since we arrived.
I made a mental note of every item the two kids stopped at.
Amanda kept glancing at the children, then back at their clothing, clearly trying to figure out how they weren't shivering.
"That fabric... it looks so thin. But you all look so warm." She said, more to herself than to me.
I reached into my item box and pulled out a small satchel of dried Chilper herbs. I set it on the counter in front of her.
"Brew it like tea. Drink it when the temperature drops." I said flatly.
Amanda looked at the satchel and picked it up carefully, turning it over. She had never seen that kind of herb before. The color alone was unusual enough to make her hesitate.
"What is it?"
"Chilper herb. It adjusts the body's temperature according to the surroundings. Keeps the cold out from the inside." I said. "Only useful when the temperature is low. No point drinking it in summer."
Amanda opened the satchel slightly and took a careful sniff. Still unsure, but curious enough not to hand it back.
"So this is why you're all dressed like that in the middle of winter?" She looked at me, then at the kids, then back at the herbs in her hand.
I didn't answer that. It wasn't relevant.
"It's a sample. Try it." I said simply.
Amanda closed the satchel and set it beside her, the hesitation still on her face but the refusal gone from it.
Kalan leaned against the counter and looked at Amanda with a straightforward expression.
"Better to try it now than keep wondering about it." He said. "We drink it every day back home. All of us. Even the children."
The children were already nodding like that settled the matter entirely.
Torra stepped forward. He had the look of someone who had been waiting for exactly this opportunity.
"I'll tell you how. This is how Aunt Celina makes it." He held up two fingers with great authority. "Only two leaves. That's enough for four people to share. Don't put too much or it'll be too strong."
"He's right." Rafa confirmed beside him, equally serious about it. "We always ask Aunt Celina for more when we're thirsty. Two leaves is always the right amount. She never puts more than that."
Amanda looked at the children. Then at the satchel. Then at her staff standing nearby.
The patisserie was already leaning toward the open satchel, pulled in by the aroma without fully realizing he was doing it. The other two staff members had drifted closer as well, curious despite themselves.
Between the smell drawing them in and the expectant stares of Kalan, Torra, and Rafa waiting for her to just try it already, Amanda didn't have much ground left to hesitate on.
She opened the satchel and carefully counted out two leaves, the way Torra had shown her. She dropped them into the pot of hot water she already had going behind the counter and let it steep.
The color that bloomed into the water was unusual. Deep and clear at the same time, catching the light from the shop windows in a way that didn't look quite like ordinary tea.
The aroma that came off it was something else entirely. Warm and clean, with something underneath it that was harder to name. The kind of smell that makes a cold room feel smaller and more comfortable without changing anything about it.
She poured it into four cups and set them out.
The patisserie didn't wait. He picked his cup up, drawn more by the smell than by any decision to be brave about it, and took a sip.
He went still.
Not the still of someone who didn't like something. The still of someone who wasn't expecting what they got.
"Oh." He set the cup down carefully and looked at his own hands, then at his arms, like he was checking whether what he felt was actually happening. "That's immediate. That's very immediate."
The warmth had gone through him fast. Not a gradual build, not the slow creep of sitting close to a fire. Something that moved from the center outward, settling into the muscles and staying there.
The other two staff members exchanged a glance and took their sips at the same time.
The sound they made was almost identical. A low exhale, involuntary, the kind that comes out of a person when something they've been carrying without noticing suddenly isn't there anymore.
They looked at each other and then at the cups in their hands like they were reconsidering everything they thought they knew about staying warm in winter.
Amanda had been watching all three of them. She picked up her own cup.
She took one sip.
The warmth didn't ease its way in. It arrived all at once, deep and even, moving through her chest and into her shoulders and down through her arms, settling into the bones the way heat from a fire never quite managed to reach.
Like being wrapped from the inside in something heavy and soft that had no weight to it at all.
She stood still for a long moment.
"This is..." She looked at me with an expression that was still catching up to what her body had just told her. "This is better than anything sold at the magic shops. And those cost a fortune just for one use. This is two leaves."
The patisserie was already shrugging his thick wool coat off his shoulders. He looked down at his kitchen uniform underneath.
Light fabric, nothing insulating about it, the kind of thing you wore when you were standing next to an oven all day and didn't need to think about the cold because the heat of the kitchen handled it.
He looked at the coat in his hands and then at the door.
"I need to check something." He said.
He walked out.
The shop door opened and the winter air came in for the few seconds before it swung shut behind him.
Outside, snow was coming down steadily. Not a light dusting, the kind of snow that meant the day was properly cold and had no apologies about it.
We watched through the window.
Because what his doing outside was proof enough that what Amanda just got hold of, was a game changer in terms of business.