Held Ground

Pip comes into the bakery alone. He orders his usual. He doesn't order Orvyn's. The empty chair tells LeFlour everything except where to look. A former Verdant Standard contractor has gone freelance, found old survey files, and taken the one Cragspit who carries the family map in his head. What the contractor doesn't know: the mines aren't just mines. They intersect with the convergence that keeps every potion in Thistlehollow working, every fogborn condensed, every enchanted object whole. The Cragspits have tended the dark for generations without naming it. Orvyn will die before he draws a map for the wrong person. Marzipan LeFlour splits two pods underground with Orvyn's grandfather and one pod topside alone — the longest split of their life, the hardest recombination, and the case where the bakery learns what's been holding the floor up the whole time.