Page 318 of Salt Between the Wolves

A dangerous look entered Mara's eyes. "Ah."

"No."

"Ah."

"There is no 'ah.'"

"There is absolutely an 'ah.'"

Eira sighed while Mara looked unbearably pleased with herself.

Some things, apparently, never changed, and fortunately that thought surprised her. Not long ago she had imagined change as something violent, something that arrived like winter storms and shattered everything familiar, but now she understood that sometimes it arrived quietly instead—in the form of friendships that endured, rooms that felt like home, and mornings when she no longer wondered who she was supposed to become.

Mara helped her into dark leathers, trimmed with subtle silver stitching at the sleeves, practical and warm, entirely unsuitable for ceremonial occasions, which was exactly why Eira liked it.

When Mara finished fastening the final clasp, Eira looked up at the polished bronze mirror, where the woman reflected still startled her sometimes—not because she looked different, but because she didn't. The silver hair remained, the pale eyes remained, the scar on her neck remained, yet the woman looking back at her carried herself differently, her head no longer bowing automatically and her shoulders no longer holding tension she had forgotten how to release. For years she had measured herself against expectations she could never satisfy, but now she simply looked like herself.

Mara watched her reflection for a moment, then said quietly, "You've stopped apologizing."

Eira looked at her. "For what?"

Mara's smile was small. "Exactly."

For a moment neither spoke, and then Eira reached for the satchel waiting beside the door, prompting Mara's expression to shift immediately into one of theatrical concern.

"You're taking work."

"I'm going to the archives."

"Which is work."

"It is interesting work."

"It is still work."

Eira ignored her, and Mara followed anyway, as she always did.

Together they crossed the fortress toward the oldest section of Ironfang, where the archives occupied a series of stone chambers built directly into the mountain itself—dusty, cold, poorly organized, and, in Eira's opinion, magnificent.

The heavy door stood open, and voices drifted from within.

The moment Eira entered, two young women sprang to their feet and immediately attempted to bow, nearly knocking over stacks of parchment in the process. Eira winced as the parchments barely survived.

"Good morning," she said.

The younger of the two beamed, while the older tried and failed to appear composed, and neither succeeded, which was one of the reasons Eira liked them. Months earlier she had discovered both helping a clerk sort damaged records, and since then they had become the closest thing Ironfang possessed to apprentices—or future historians, or archivists, as the exact title remained under debate, mostly because Eira kept inventing new ones.

"We've made progress," the older girl announced immediately.

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is."

The younger one looked delighted by this.

Eira set down her satchel. "Show me."

At once both began talking, not taking turns but simply talking, explaining that several forgotten record collections had been identified, three damaged family registries had been restored, an inventory of winter losses had been recovered from nearly a century earlier, and someone had finally discovered why an entire section of documents kept disappearing—the culprit turning out to be a persistent leak in the ceiling.