By the time summer settled properly into the valley, even the dough seemed lazier.

It spread faster, proofed quicker, leaned toward the edges of bowls like it wanted to nap in the heat. The air in the bakehouse shimmered a little near the oven, and Mila had taken to keeping a damp cloth around her neck on the hottest days.

Business, of course, did the opposite of laze.

Summer meant markets and fairs and people with coin they hadn’t sweated out of their brows yet. It meant travelers on the Pathling coming through just long enough to say, “Oh, this must be the bakery,” with the tone of someone ticking something off a list.

It meant more orders on the slate.

On this particular morning, the list looked like it had ideas above its station.

Bryn squinted at it as he laced his apron. “Who wrote ‘twenty-four centerpiece loaves’ and thought that sounded reasonable?” he asked.

“Someone with a very large table,” Lorne said, tightening her braids.

“Or several medium ones,” Mila added. “It’s the River Guild’s summer feast. They sent a runner yesterday.”

Bryn made a face. “So this is Kett’s fault,” he said.

“It’s not Kett’s fault that the Guild likes to show off,” Crumb said mildly, coming in from the back with a basket of yesterday’s crumbs. “Though he does seem to enjoy giving them reasons.”

He set the basket down and tapped the slate.

“Centerpiece loaves, yes,” he said. “And rolls. And rounds. And the usual daily. We’ll stagger it. The Guild eats late; they like to make people wait for their speeches.”

“What kind of centerpiece?” Lorne asked, already mentally sketching.

“Guild sigil,” Crumb said. “River and rope. Easy enough to suggest in dough. Bryn, you’ll like it. Plenty of lines.”

Bryn smirked. “At least someone appreciates me,” he said. They got to work.

The first hours of the morning passed in the usual blur of flour and heat. Daily loaves for regulars. Sweet twists for the schoolchildren who’d spent their first week of summer freedom running wild and were now being bribed back indoors with sugar.

Lorne shaped test twists of dough into possible sigils—braids that looped like rope, curves that suggested currents. She liked this part: taking something stiff and heraldic and teaching it to live as bread.

“Make sure it reads from far away,” Crumb reminded her. “People will be looking from the other end of a crowded table. They should know what they’re reaching for.”

“So: big and a little obvious,” Lorne said. “Like Bryn.” Bryn threw a scrap of dough at her. She dodged, barely.

Closer to midday, when the worst of the baking heat was beginning to gather, the front bell gave its particular chime.

This one was different.

Not the quick, jangly ring of a regular or the hesitant tap of someone new. It was a crisp, deliberate ting-ting, like someone announcing themselves at a door they owned.

Mila looked up from the stove. “That sounds like coin,” she murmured. “Important coin,” Bryn said.

Crumb wiped his hands and stepped toward the front.

“Keep an eye on the rolls,” he told Mila. “And don’t let Bryn talk you into ‘saving time’ by doubling them up on the pan.”

“I value my life,” Mila said. “I won’t.”

In the front room, the woman waiting at the counter wore summer like armor.

Her dress was pale linen, cut well and embroidered in a pattern that mimicked water. Her hair was arranged in a style that said, Someone spent time on this. Rings glittered on her fingers as she tapped them against the wood.

“Master Crumb,” she said, as if there might be other Crumbs hiding in the back and she wanted to be sure she had the right one.

“That’s the name I answer to,” Crumb said. “Welcome. What can we do for the river today?” She smiled, quick and sharp.

“Lady Merrin Hane,” she said. “I believe you know my nephew.” “Kestrel,” Crumb said. “He’s eaten more than his fair share of crowns.” “Then he has good taste,” Merrin said. “As do I.”

Her eyes swept the shelves briefly, assessing and dismissing in one pass.

“I’m here about the Guild feast,” she went on. “We’ve already placed the usual order for rolls and daily bread. Kett assures me you’ll manage that with one hand tied.”

“I prefer both hands free, but yes,” Crumb said. She leaned forward slightly.

“I want something… more,” she said. “For the high table.”

“In addition to the center loaves we discussed?” Crumb asked. “In place of them,” she said. “I’ve had a better idea.”

Lorne, watching from the gap, felt the hairs on her arms prickle. “Better idea,” Bryn whispered. “Brace yourself.”

Merrin set a folded paper on the counter and smoothed it with her palm.

“I was in the valley during Lantern Week last year,” she said. “Visiting Kett. I saw your… ceremony bread. The ones with the marks.”

“Lantern loaves,” Crumb said softly.

“Yes,” she said. “Those. The round ones, with names cut on top and ribbons tied. Beautiful. I couldn’t help thinking what a striking sight it makes—a whole table of bread, each one for someone specific.”

Her eyes glinted.

“I want that,” she said. “For the feast.”

Crumb’s fingers, resting on the counter, went still.

“You want Lantern loaves for a summer guild banquet,” he said. It wasn’t quite a question. “Not your exact… funeral rites,” she said, waving a hand. “We wouldn’t be throwing them into

the river, obviously. But we could have one loaf per guest at the high table. Their initials on top. Ribbons in guild colors. Imagine the impression.”

She smiled wider.

“Names at their places,” she said. “Bread that says, You are important enough to mark. It’s good politics, Master Crumb. People eat flattery faster than flour.”

Behind the gap, Bryn murmured, “She’s not wrong.” Lorne’s stomach turned.

Crumb’s expression didn’t change, but something in the room went taut. “Lady Merrin,” he said carefully, “those loaves are for the dead.”

“Names are names,” she said lightly. “Whether they’re attached to someone walking or not.” “The way we write them isn’t,” Crumb replied. “Lantern marks are messages. Promises. Griefs.”

“And what is a guild feast if not a place for promises?” Merrin countered. “Oaths, alliances, quiet threats. It seems fitting to borrow a ritual that already understands that language.”

She leaned in.

“I’m prepared to pay well,” she added. “Double your usual for center loaves. Triple, if you need the persuasion.”

The word triple seemed to echo in the flour dust.

Lorne could feel Bryn doing the sums behind her without even seeing him.

“That’s enough to fix the oven door,” he whispered. “And the roof. And buy better sacks. And—” “Some recipes are house,” Mila murmured from the stove. “Some hearth.”

Lorne swallowed.

Crumb’s eyes drifted briefly to the back, where the slate hung with those three columns. House. Hearth. Open Hand.

Lantern bread sat firmly under Hearth. He looked back at Merrin.

“I’m glad you liked them,” he said. “Truly. But we won’t make them for a feast.” She blinked, as if he’d answered a different question.

“I’m offering you three times your price,” she reminded him.

“And I’m offering you my no,” he said gently. “Not because your coin is bad. Because the loaf you’re asking for isn’t the one we bake for the living.”

There was a small pause.

“You did say you wanted names,” he added. “We can make center loaves with your sigil and mark initials on them. House-style. Pretty. Impressive. But we won’t tie ribbons and carve letters in that Lantern Week pattern for people who are going to walk away from the table after.”

Merrin’s tone cooled a notch.

“Is it a superstition?” she asked. “You think it will… call death down on my guests?”

“No,” Crumb said. “Lady, if bread had that kind of power, this valley would look very different.” She huffed.

“Then what does it matter?” she demanded. “Bread is bread. Marks are marks. You carve them one way for this, another way for that. I’m not asking you to say prayers over them. Just to give us the look.”

Lorne’s hands tightened on the edge of the partition.

She knew that argument. Had made it herself in softer ways, about smaller things. It’s just the look. Just the shape. Just once.

Crumb’s gaze didn’t waver.

“It matters because Lantern bread is how we say, ‘We know you’re gone and we are not pretending otherwise,’” he said. “If we use that same language to say, ‘Look how important you are for still being here,’ the words get confused. People start wondering which tables are for grief and which are for flattery.”

“People are smarter than you give them credit for,” Merrin said crisply.

“I think they’re exactly as smart as I give them credit for,” Crumb replied. “Which is why I don’t want to muddy the river they drink from.”

He spread his hands.

“You and yours are welcome to come back on Lantern Week and watch or take part,” he said. “I’ll explain the loaves. The ribbons. The marks. I’ll even send one with you if you’re carrying a name that needs it. But I won’t sell you that shape for a summer party. Not for triple. Not for ten times.”

Behind the gap, Bryn winced as if he’d been punched in his ledger. “Ten,” he breathed.

Merrin’s jaw tightened.

“Do you know how many bakers would leap at this?” she asked. “How many would happily copy the pattern for less than I’m offering you?”

“I imagine it’s a long list,” Crumb said. “If you want the look without the bones under it, you won’t have trouble finding someone to oblige you.”

“And you’ll just… watch them?” she asked. “Watch someone else serve your bread in a guild hall?”

“It won’t be my bread,” Crumb said calmly. “It’ll be theirs. With my mistakes.” “Your mistakes?” she repeated coldly.

“I’m the one who let the Lantern bread out into your eyes,” he said. “I can’t help that. You saw something alive and thought, ‘How can we dress it up.’ That’s half my fault. But what I do next? That’s mine alone.”

Merrin’s rings clicked again on the counter. “You’re making this bigger than it is,” she said.

“That’s my job,” Crumb said quietly. “To remember that some things are bigger than they look on the tray.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

The heat from the oven washed into the room, carrying the smell of browning rolls. Finally, Merrin exhaled sharply and straightened.

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll take your sigil loaves. No ribbons. No Lantern marks. But I’ll remember that you turned down guild coin.”

“I hope you remember it as me protecting the valley’s language,” Crumb said. “But I’ll take ‘stubborn’ too.”

She gave him a cool, assessing look, then gathered her skirts.

“We’ll send someone for the order at dusk,” she said. “Don’t be late.” “We won’t,” Crumb said.

She left with the same precise ting-ting she’d come in on. The door shut.

The room exhaled.

Bryn popped up in the gap like a cork.

“Ten times?” he demanded. “You wouldn’t take ten times?” “Hello, Bryn,” Crumb said. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Do you have any idea how much flour that is?” Bryn barreled on. “How many sacks? How many roof tiles? You could’ve fixed the entire ceiling and bought new bannetons and—”

“And,” Crumb said patiently, “taught the valley that Lantern bread is for favors if you stack enough coin on the counter. Yes. I’m aware.”

Lorne stepped out more slowly.

“I get not selling the exact ritual,” she said, voice careful. “But we could have… adjusted it. Changed a few things. Kept the extra coin and told ourselves it wasn’t really Lantern bread.”

“House vs. hearth,” Mila said quietly, wiping her hands as she joined them. “We’re back there again.”

Crumb glanced at the slate.

“Exactly,” he said. “We made that list for days like this. Not the easy ones.” Bryn threw his hands up.

“It just seems foolish,” he said. “We’re always counting coppers. You taught me to track every crumb that goes out. Now a lady walks in offering a sackful of gold crumbs and you say no because… it feels wrong?”

“Yes,” Crumb said simply. “Because it feels wrong for the right reasons.” Bryn scowled. “That’s not very helpful.”

Crumb reached for a clean scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal. “Come here,” he said.

Suspicious but unable to stop himself, Bryn came.

“So,” Crumb said, drawing a quick box. “Let’s pretend this is our ledger. Money in, money out. If we take her offer, what happens?”

“We get more coin,” Bryn said. “Obviously.” Crumb wrote: + big coin from guild in the box. “What else?” he asked.

“We get more… reach,” Bryn said slowly. “More people see our bread.” Crumb added: + story spreads: Crumb makes named loaves for the guild. “And?” he pressed.

Bryn hesitated.

“And people… talk,” Lorne said quietly. “They say, ‘Did you see the guild’s bread? Looked just like the Lantern loaves, only prettier. You can get Crumb to make those for the living now, if you pay enough.’”

Crumb wrote: – Lantern Week shape starts meaning ‘important living person’ instead of ‘remembered dead person’.

He looked at Mila.

“What does that do on Lantern night?” he asked. She chewed her lip.

“People start wondering what they’re paying for,” she said. “Whether the loaf on the river is for their sister or for some guildman’s career. Whether the names on the table are there because of love or because someone wanted to show off.”

Crumb added: – trust in Lantern Week table.

“And what does that do to the grieving?” he asked softly. Mila swallowed.

“It makes them feel like their grief is a… style,” she said. “Something that can be rented. Not something… held.”

Crumb wrote: – grief feels cheaper.

Bryn shifted uneasily.

“So we’d be… spending trust,” he said. “Not just flour.”

“Exactly,” Crumb said. “Coin comes in. Trust goes out. This isn’t a straight ledger anymore.”

He turned the paper.

“Money can fix roofs,” he went on. “It can buy more sacks. It can pay apprentices so they don’t have to eat stew bread every night. I’m not blind to that. We’ll take guild coin for house loaves as long as they’re willing to pay fair.”

He tapped the line about Lantern Week.

“But if we trade the meaning of our dead’s bread for a nicer ceiling,” he said, “I have to look at every lantern on the river next winter and wonder how many slices I sold off of them.”

Mila’s throat tightened.

Lorne thought of the little girl’s “She liked stars” loaf. Of Harrow’s three circles. Of the bird she and Bryn had nearly lost.

Bryn stared at the paper.

“But what if someone else does it?” he asked, voice smaller. “Some other baker who doesn’t care about hearth and house. They’ll mess it up anyway. Might as well be us, doing it right.”

Crumb smiled sadly.

“That’s the loudest temptation,” he said. “‘If I don’t, someone worse will.’ Sometimes it’s even true.” He shrugged. “But here’s the thing: we don’t control other ovens. Only ours.”

He folded the paper in half.

“If another bakery makes Lantern Week-shaped party bread,” he said, “that’s on them. I’ll be sad. I might even mourn it like a person. But I’ll still know that in this valley, in this room, when someone asks, ‘Can any coin buy that shape?’ the answer is no.”

He looked at Bryn.

“That’s not nothing,” he said. “Even if it feels small compared to a roof tile.” Bryn dragged a hand through his hair.

“It just feels like we’re always saying no to the easy coin,” he muttered.

“No,” Crumb said. “We’re saying no to the coin that would ask us to lie about what bread is doing on a table.”

He nodded toward the back.

“Remember when we ran out?” he asked. “When we had to cut the loaves and tell people we didn’t have what we promised?”

Mila winced. “Hard to forget.”

“We could’ve sold the underbread as full loaves and told ourselves we were helping,” Crumb said. “We didn’t. We were poor in coin that day, but richer in… whatever stew bread apology gave us.”

“Indigestion,” Bryn muttered, but there was no heat in it. Crumb chuckled.

“Today is the same ledger,” he said. “Different column.” Lorne leaned against the bench.

“Is there ever a time you’d change your mind?” she asked. “About what’s hearth and what’s house? Or is it fixed forever?”

Crumb considered.

“Some things might move,” he said. “If the valley changes. If the people do. If we’re given a new understanding of what a loaf is doing.” He shook his head. “But I can’t imagine a world where the bread we use to say goodbye gets repurposed to say, ‘Look at you, aren’t you splendid for living.’”

Mila snorted softly. “That would be some world.” Bryn sighed.

“So, what can we make her that still says something?” he asked. “Other than, ‘You’re not getting what you want.’”

Crumb’s eyes brightened.

“Now that,” he said, “is a good question.” He reached for a piece of dough.

“If she wants names,” he said, “we can give her names in a way that doesn’t steal from the dead. We can bake two long loaves for each side of the high table—one for guild elders, one for new members.”

He shaped as he spoke.

“We mark the elders’ loaf with rings,” he said. “Years of service. We mark the new members’ loaf with small buds—promises. No ribbons. No Lantern Week curves. But when they slice, they’ll think about who made room for them and who they’re making room for.”

Lorne’s fingers itched to echo the shapes. “And the center?” Bryn asked.

“Guild sigil, like we planned,” Crumb said. “River and rope. No names on that one at all. Just reminder: you’re all tied to the same water.”

Mila smiled.

“That still says something,” she said.

“It says a lot,” Crumb replied. “Without borrowing a language that wasn’t meant for it.” He nodded toward Lorne.

“You take the elders’ loaf,” he said. “Your cuts are careful enough not to insult anyone’s wrinkles. Bryn, you take the new members’. You’ll remember every bud you mark, because you’ll be counting how many slices you think they’ll grow into.”

“And me?” Mila asked.

“You’ll make sure they don’t burn while these two argue over symbolism,” Crumb said. She laughed.

They got to work.

The rest of the day was busy in the way summer days are—heat and noise and people who wanted something sweet to go with their arguments. At one point, Kett himself popped in, eyebrows raised.

“I hear my aunt tried to buy your dead bread,” he said under his breath. “Word travels fast,” Crumb replied.

“She was not pleased,” Kett said. “I’m not sure whether I’m more amused or impressed that you told her no.”

“You’re still buying your crown,” Crumb observed.

Kett grinned. “Absolutely,” he said. “Some things money shouldn’t talk you out of.”

At dusk, when the loaves for the feast were lined up on the bench, even Bryn had to admit they looked… right.

Two long elders’ loaves, marked with simple circles and small, straight lines. Two new loaves, topped with tiny scored buds that would open in the oven. A central sigil loaf, braided into the suggestion of a river crossing ropes.

“It’s not Lantern bread,” Lorne said quietly. “But it’s… honest.”

“Honest is more than enough for a guild hall,” Crumb said. “Most days it’s more than they expect.”

The runner who came to collect the order gaped at the spread.

“Lady Merrin will…” He hesitated. “Well. She’ll say something. But they’re beautiful.”

“Tell her they’ll hold,” Crumb said. “Through speeches and toasts and the first round of complaints. After that, they’re on their own.”

When the door closed behind the cart, the bake room felt strangely empty without the weight of those loaves.

Bryn leaned on the bench.

“Do you think anyone will notice they’re not the Lantern bread?” he asked.

“Oh, they’ll notice,” Lorne said. “Some of them will be disappointed. Some relieved. Some will be too busy shouting to taste anything.” She shrugged. “But the bread will know what it was asked to say.”

Crumb nodded, pleased.

“That’s our part,” he said. “We can’t make people listen. We can only not lie in their mouths.” Later, after the last pans were scrubbed and the floor swept, Bryn lingered by the slate.

Under Hearth, after “Lantern loaves” and “Spring Crowns,” he added, in his blunt hand:

● Saying no when coin is loud.

Mila, on her way past, paused and smiled. “That one’s going to be hard to teach,” she said. “Good thing we’ve got time,” Bryn replied.

Lorne, climbing the stairs, glanced back once at the words on the board. House. Hearth. Open Hand.

And under Hearth, a quiet new line in charcoal.

She thought of the years ahead—ovens she might stand in front of that weren’t this one, orders that would sound flattering and wrong at the same time.

She hoped she’d remember this day.

The way the air had felt when Crumb said, “I’m offering you my no.” The way her own ribs had loosened when he did.

In five years, people would tell stories about the bakehouse having “principles,” usually with an eye-roll attached.

Tonight, it was just four tired bakers in a hot room, choosing which loaves could be bought and which answers could not.

The river outside kept moving.

The dough in the starter jar gave a small, contented sigh as it settled.

And somewhere between the ledger and the lanterns, a line had been drawn a little darker, in flour and in choice, where coin would not cross.