By the time the Harvest Loaves came out of the oven, Mila’s shirt was stuck to her back and her apron looked like it had lost a fight with a flour sack.

They were worth it.

Even she had to admit that.

They were bigger than the regular hearth loaves, round and high, scored with a spiral that made each one look like it was still slowly turning in the air. Seeds clung to the crust, catching in every curve. Crumb had brushed the tops with a thin wash of something that had baked to a soft sheen—egg, honey, maybe both. When she leaned in, she could smell roasted grain, a hint of sweetness, and something else that reminded her of standing in a field at dusk.

“Don’t touch,” Crumb said without looking up. “You’ll burn yourself.” “I was just smelling,” Mila protested.

“You can smell just as well from over there,” he said, nudging the cooling rack farther from the edge of the bench. “These are stubborn. They’ll hold heat longer than you think.”

“Like Bryn,” Lorne murmured.

“Bryn cools faster than he pretends,” Crumb said. “He just makes noise about it.”

From the front of the shop, they could hear Bryn’s voice now, trying to manage the growing crowd. Market day always brought more people, but Harvest Market was its own creature. Farmers who rarely came to the square had made the trip in. There were more wagons, more children, more noise. And more eyes on the bakery’s door.

“These are really only once a year?” Mila asked, watching the steam curl up from the loaves.

“Like this, yes,” Crumb said. “We do smaller celebration loaves for other things. But the big Harvest ones”—he nodded at them with something like fondness—“they’re for this day.”

“Seems like a lot of work for one day,” Mila said.

Crumb shrugged. “The fields only look like this once a year. If the bread looked like this all the time, people would stop noticing.”

He said it lightly, but his hands were careful as he moved the rack to the side, making room for the next batch of simpler loaves. Mila had helped shape the Harvest ones. The dough had been heavier, enriched with more than just water and flour. She’d had to learn a new rhythm to fold in the seeds without tearing the structure.

“How many?” she asked, nodding toward the rack.

“Forty,” Crumb said. “Twenty for pre-orders. Twenty for the counter. That’s enough for the village to feel rich without leaving us with sad leftovers tomorrow.”

“And if we make more?” Bryn called from the doorway to the front. “We could stack them in the window and look like we swim in bread.”

“And then we’d be scrambling to find someone to take the stale ones three days from now,” Crumb said. “No. Forty.”

Mila looked at the loaves again. There was something satisfying about the number—solid, round, like the loaves themselves. Enough to feel like a crowd. Not so many that they felt cheap.

“What do we charge?” she asked. “For something that… special?”

Crumb wiped his hands on his apron and glanced at the slate where prices were listed.

“Twice the daily loaf and a little more,” he said. “Not because we did twice the work, but because we stole them from tomorrow’s flour.”

Mila frowned. “Stole?”

He pointed at the sacks in the corner. “That flour had other jobs. Everyday bread. Rolls. We borrowed it for this one, big, loud moment instead. That means, for a few days, we live thinner so the village can feast today.” He shrugged. “It’s fair to ask the feast to help pay for the thinner days.”

Mila thought of her parents’ inn, of the way they’d stretched one decent stew across two nights, telling customers the second night that it was “better rested” while she and her mother knew the real reason.

“And people will pay that?” she asked.

“They do every year,” Crumb said. “Some grouse. Some don’t. Some buy one loaf and tear it into four so everyone at the table gets a piece. People do strange math when something feels like a treat.”

She wasn’t entirely convinced, but the bell at the front door rang again and Bryn’s voice punched through the air.

“Crumb! You might want to come see this.”

Crumb sighed. “That sentence is never followed by good news.” He nodded at Mila. “Check the bottoms on these plain ones in eight minutes. If they sound shy, give them two more.”

“How can a loaf sound shy?” she asked. “You’ll hear it,” he said, and was gone.

Mila set a timer in her head anyway. Eight minutes. She could do that much.

She kept working, but the noise from the front was getting louder. Not the usual hum of many small conversations, but one voice carrying more than the others. Sharp. Confident. Used to being heard.

Bryn muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse, followed by, “No, that’s the price. No, it’s the same for everyone.”

Lorne smirked. “You should go peek,” she said. “Before Bryn tries to throw someone in the oven.”

“I thought that was your job,” Mila answered, but her curiosity was already pulling her toward the doorway.

She wiped her hands, checked the oven—five minutes left by her count—and slipped through the short passage into the front.

The shop was fuller than she’d seen it. People pressed in, some already clutching loaves or rolls, others craning their necks to see the display baskets. The air was thick with warmth, perfume, sweat, and the spicy-sweet scent of the Harvest Loaves lined up behind the counter.

In front of them, taking up more than his share of space, stood a man Mila didn’t recognize.

He might have been handsome once, in a sharp, polished way, but there was a worn edge to him now that made everything seem slightly too bright. His clothes were richer than most villagers’—dark coat, good boots, a scarf that hadn’t seen real work. He tapped a coin on the counter with one finger, steady and rhythmic.

“This is a festival,” he was saying. “Festival prices are supposed to be better, not worse.”

Bryn stood on the other side of the counter, jaw tight. Beside him, Crumb looked calm, which somehow made the man’s agitation stand out more.

“These aren’t festival discounts,” Crumb said. “They’re festival loaves.”

“Flour is flour,” the man said. “Don’t dress it up. I’m buying in bulk. You said yourself you’d set aside twenty for the counter. I’ll take all twenty and pay…” He named a number a little under what Mila knew they were charging per loaf.

Several heads in the room snapped toward him at once. It wasn’t significantly higher than the regular loaves, but it wasn’t the listed price either.

Bryn flushed. “That’s not how this works,” he said. “You don’t get to—”

Crumb held up a hand, and Bryn stopped talking, though his hands still flexed at his sides. “We’re charging what we posted,” Crumb said. “Twice the daily loaf and a little more.”

“And I’m saying that’s too much,” the man said. “These are for the workers up at the big field. I promised them something from the square. For twenty loaves, you could stand to shave the price. You’ll still make your coin.”

People were listening now. Mila could feel the room tightening. A woman near the back shifted, her hand moving toward the small purse at her belt, as if re-counting in her head. A boy on tiptoe stared at the Harvest Loaves with hungry eyes.

“Who are you feeding?” Crumb asked, not unkindly.

“The harvest crew on my father’s land,” the man said. “They’ve been breaking their backs for us all month. I thought I might bring them something worth seeing.”

“And you want us to help you look generous,” Bryn muttered. Crumb gave him a look. “Outside voice, Bryn.”

“It is my outside voice,” Bryn said. “It’s attached to my outside thoughts.” A few people snorted quietly. The man’s face tightened.

“I’m bringing work to this square,” he said. “Those crews will spend their pay here today. You should be thanking me and cutting a little off the top, not trying to bleed me for every crumb.”

Mila felt a flicker of something uncomfortable in her chest. Bleed me. That was the kind of phrase she’d heard at the inn’s tables, when merchants complained about taxes or tariffs. It was the voice of someone used to framing himself as the victim every time coin left his hand.

Crumb leaned his elbows on the counter slightly, the way someone might if they were settling in for a long conversation on a stool. It made him less imposing, but somehow more solid.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“It’s on the sign at the road,” the man said. “But if you must hear it from me, I’m Callen Dorr. My father owns the south fields. The good ones.”

Mila recognized the name. The Dorrs were one of the larger land families outside the village. People spoke of them with a mix of respect and caution. They controlled a lot of grain.

Which meant, in a way, they controlled a lot of bread.

“Callen,” Crumb said. “You’re right about one thing. Flour is flour. It doesn’t know whether it’s going into a celebration loaf or a heel for stew.”

“Exactly,” Callen said, sensing advantage. “So why the extra coin?” “Because the story’s different,” Crumb said simply.

Callen blinked. “The… story.”

“Yes.” Crumb nodded toward the Harvest Loaves. “Those? They’re not meant to disappear into a bowl of soup without anyone noticing. They’re meant to land in the middle of a table and tell everyone, ‘The work was worth it. We made it through another season. Look what the field gave back.’”

“It’s bread,” Callen said flatly.

“It is,” Crumb agreed. “And bread’s a promise. The everyday loaves tell you, ‘You’ll have enough to eat today and probably tomorrow.’ The Harvest Loaves tell you, ‘Your work mattered, and we see it.’ Those are different promises. We ask different prices for them.”

Mila watched Callen’s jaw work. He wasn’t a fool; she could see him weighing the room as much as the loaves. People were listening. If he pushed too hard, he might look cheap. If he gave in, he would feel cheated.

“But you’ll still make a profit either way,” he said. “If you sell at my price, you still cover your flour and your time.”

“Some things need to be more than covered,” Crumb said. “If I sell these cheaper because you’re buying twenty, what do I tell the woman who comes in later and buys one with three days’ wages in her hand? That her table is worth less than yours because she doesn’t own fields?”

A murmur went through the shop. The woman at the back with the small purse went very still, eyes fixed on the loaves.

Callen’s face flushed. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It’s what they’ll hear,” Crumb said. “Prices are stories. People learn them with their bones long before they learn sums. If the story of today is ‘Loud men with big orders get more for less,’ that will follow us. If the story is ‘This bread is dear because your work is dear,’ that can follow us instead.”

“Dear?” Callen repeated, incredulous. “You’re calling this charity? I told you, I’m feeding my men. Hard workers. They’re not nobles sitting at—”

“I’m not talking about charity,” Crumb said sharply enough that Bryn straightened. “I’m talking about honesty. If your crews see you bring back twenty of those at that price, what will they think of you?”

“That I kept my word,” Callen said. “That I brought them something good. That I didn’t keep the coin for myself.”

“And what will you know?” Crumb asked, voice quiet now. Callen hesitated.

“That I bargained well,” he said finally.

Crumb nodded. “And you would have. But not with me. With them. You’d be taking their celebration and shaving off the edges they can’t see. They’d eat the same bread either way. 

You’d carry the difference home.”

Callen’s mouth pressed into a line. For a second, Mila wondered if he would shout, or storm out, or throw the coin at Crumb’s face. Instead, he laughed once, short and harsh.

“You talk like a priest,” he said. “Over flour.”

“Priests have their altar,” Crumb said. “I have mine.” He gestured at the counter. “Same gods. Different offerings.”

A few people made small signs with their fingers, half-habit, half-respect.

Callen looked at the loaves again. Mila could see the strain in his face now: wanting to be seen as generous, wanting to be seen as clever, not wanting to spend more coin than he needed to.

“What if I can’t afford twenty at that price?” he asked. “What then, Baker? The Harvest Loaves tell my workers they weren’t worth the good bread?”

There was something raw in the question that surprised her. Maybe there was more to him than sharp edges.

Crumb considered him for a long moment.

“How many do you need to keep your word?” he asked. Callen blinked. “All of them. I told them—”

“You told them you’d bring them something from the square,” Crumb said. “You didn’t promise twenty identical halves of the same round.”

Mila felt a spark of understanding as he spoke.

“You could bring ten Harvest Loaves and ten hearth loaves,” Crumb went on. “Cut the celebration ones so each table gets a piece. Fill the rest of the table with the daily bread. Your crews will see both. They’ll taste both. They’ll know you brought them something extra without anyone having to count exactly how much coin left your pocket.”

Callen chewed his lip. “And you won’t cut the price on the Harvest Loaves.”

“No,” Crumb said. “But I’ll give you the hearth loaves at bulk if you’re taking ten at once. Those are everyday promises. Everyday promises can share their shoulders.”

“And if I say no?” Callen asked.

“Then I’ll sell these to the people in this room,” Crumb said. “One at a time. At the price I posted. And when your crews come down to the square with their wages and see someone else carrying a Harvest Loaf home, they’ll ask why it wasn’t on their table.”

The room held its breath.

It wasn’t a threat. Crumb’s voice hadn’t changed. But the choice lay between them now like a loaf on a cutting board.

Callen looked around and seemed, for the first time, to actually see the other faces. The woman at the back. A man in a rough work coat with sawdust clinging to his cuffs. A child who had stopped picking at his sleeve and was staring openly at the golden rounds.

Callen swallowed.

“Ten Harvest. Ten hearth,” he said. “At the prices you said.” Crumb inclined his head. “That sounds fair.”

Bryn let out an audible breath. Mila realized she’d been holding her own.

Callen tapped the coin on the counter once more, then slipped it back into his purse. “I’ll need them ready within the hour,” he said, returning to briskness as if trying to shake off the moment. “We break at second bell.”

“They’ll be ready,” Crumb said. “Mila, mark up the slate. Ten Harvest reserved for Dorr fields. Ten hearth loaves on bulk for the same order.”

Mila hurried back to the wall and chalked the note: 10 Hrvst – Dorr / 10 Hrth bulk. Her hand shook only a little.

When she turned back, Callen was already halfway to the door. He paused with his hand on the latch and glanced over his shoulder.

“And Baker?” he said. “Yes?”

“If those loaves are as good as they smell, I’ll be back next year,” he said. “At whatever price you put up.”

Crumb smiled. “We’ll see what the field says,” he replied. Callen left, and the bell jangled behind him.

The shop relaxed all at once, like a held breath let go. Conversations resumed. The woman with the small purse stepped up to the counter slowly.

“How much for one?” she asked, nodding toward the Harvest Loaves. Crumb straightened. “Same as the board,” he said, and named the price.

She opened her purse and counted out the coins carefully. Mila’s heart pinched at how precisely she did it, how little was left after.

“Do you want it whole or sliced?” Crumb asked.

“Whole,” she said firmly. “They’ll see it on the table first. We’ll cut it after.”

“Good,” Crumb said, and wrapped it as if it were something more fragile than bread. Mila watched her leave, the round tucked against her chest like a small sun.

Back in the bake room, the heat hit her again. The oven timer in her head dinged; she almost ran to pull the plain loaves before they tipped past done. Lorne handed her the peel without comment, but there was a question in her eyes.

“How bad was it?” she asked as Mila slid the last loaf to the rack.

“It could have been worse,” Mila said. “He wanted all twenty for less. Crumb said no.” “Of course he did,” Lorne said. “Did he yell?”

“No,” Mila said. “He… told a story.”

“About bread,” Bryn added, coming in with a tray of coins and a slightly dazed look. “Because apparently that’s what we do now.”

“That’s what we’ve always done,” Crumb said, stepping through the door behind him. “You were just too busy cutting corners to hear it.”

Bryn rolled his eyes, but there wasn’t much force in it. Mila hesitated, then spoke.

“What if he really couldn’t afford them?” she asked. “Callen. What if the price we set meant he had to choose between feeding his crews something special and… I don’t know… paying for repairs. Or taxes. Or—”

“Then he’d have to choose,” Crumb said. “Honestly.” He rinsed his hands in the basin. “The price doesn’t make his choice for him. It just makes sure he knows what he’s choosing between.”

“But…” Mila worried the edge of her apron. “We could have given a discount and no one would have known.”

“I would have known,” Crumb said softly. She looked up.

“And so would you,” he added. “So would anyone in this room who heard us say one thing and do another.”

He dried his hands and moved to the bench, picking up one of the cooling Harvest Loaves. He held it carefully, fingers spread to support the weight.

“Some breads,” he said, “can change price without changing soul. The evening roll, the extra heel, the flatbread we slap together for someone who’s late. Those are coins in and out.

They’re fine. Needed. We can haggle over them.”

He set the loaf down and tapped it gently.

“This one? This one is a marker in the year. If we start saying ‘maybe it’s worth less if you’re loud, or if you’re important, or if you’re giving us good exposure,’ then the next time someone sees it on the shelf, it won’t mean the same thing.”

Mila thought of the woman with the small purse, the way she’d held the loaf. Of Callen’s face when Crumb had spoken of promises.

“So you won’t ever lower the price?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Crumb replied. “If there’s a year when the harvest is thin and people are scraping by, we may charge less because the story is different: ‘This year is lean, but we still made room for celebration.’ Or we may charge the same and quietly give more away.” He shrugged. “The numbers can move. The meaning can’t.”

“Meaning,” Bryn said. “Story. Trust. At some point, do we start charging people for your speeches, too?”

“Once they start listening well enough to pay for them, maybe,” Crumb said dryly. Lorne snorted.

Mila leaned against the bench for a moment, feeling the lingering tremor in her hands from the front-room tension. “My father would have taken the coin,” she said quietly. “At the inn. If someone had offered to buy all the good bread at a lower price. He would have told himself it was better than nothing.”

“How did that work out for him?” Crumb asked.

She thought of thin soups and watered ale, of the way regulars had slowly started going elsewhere because “elsewhere” seemed to value itself more.

“Not well,” she admitted.

Crumb nodded. “I’m not judging him. We all make those choices when we’re scared. But I’ve seen what happens when we cheapen the thing that’s supposed to hold the room together. Tables get quiet. People stop trusting their hunger enough to bring it in the door.”

He looked at her. “Do you think the price is fair?”

Mila looked at the loaves. At the work they’d put in. At the sacks of flour in the corner. At her own sore arms.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I think it tells the right story. That this day isn’t like other days.” “Good,” Crumb said. “Then if anyone complains later, you can answer them.”

She stared. “Me?”

“Who do you think they’ll blame when they see the chalkboard?” he asked. “Only half of them talk to me. The others talk to whoever looks like they might agree with them.”

Bryn smirked. “So that’s why you keep me in the front. I’m too loud to sneak my sympathy into anyone’s ear.”

“That, and you can carry three baskets at once without dropping them,” Crumb said. “Mila, if someone says it’s too much, you can tell them, ‘We spent more on this loaf because you spent more on this year.’ If they still don’t like it, they can buy a hearth loaf instead. Those are blessed, too. Just less… dramatic.”

Mila felt a small knot of nervousness and pride settle in her chest. Speaking for the price felt almost as serious as loading the first loaves had.

“What about people who really can’t pay?” Lorne asked quietly. “Not men with fields. People who… just can’t.”

Crumb’s expression gentled.

“For them, we have other stories,” he said. “Some told in coin. Some not.” He nodded toward the side table where a small note jar sat. “You’ve seen the jar.”

Mila had. The hand-lettered sign above it read: ‘Leave what you can. Take what you need. We’ll pretend not to notice.’

“We make room,” Crumb said. “Quietly. Not as an advertisement. As an apology for the ways the world weighs some people wrong.” He picked up a scrap of crust from the board and tossed it into his mouth. “But we don’t move the sign for them by moving it for men like Callen.”

Bryn scratched his head. “So the rule is…?”

“The rule,” Crumb said, “is that the price on the board is the promise to the room. If we change it, we change it for everyone. Discounts are not for whoever argues best. They’re for whoever would be turned away otherwise. And those, we don’t talk about.”

He gave Bryn a look. “Especially not with your outside voice.” Bryn held up his hands. “I can keep a secret. I just prefer not to.” Lorne shook her head, but she was smiling.

The rest of the day passed in a blur.

The ten Harvest Loaves for the Dorr fields were wrapped and stacked aside, each marked with a small symbol so there’d be no confusion. The remaining ten went, one by one, to people who counted coins and people who didn’t need to. Mila watched carefully how Crumb handled each.

A few times, when a hand lingered too long over an empty purse, he tipped the loaf slightly and said, “Looks like this one wants to be gifted today.” Always lightly. Never loudly. The recipient would flush, murmur thanks, and leave before anyone could make a fuss.

No one got a discount for arguing.

By dusk, only crumbs remained in the Harvest baskets. The shop floor was streaked with flour. Everyone’s feet hurt. The air smelled like tiredness and satisfaction.

As they swept, Bryn nudged the chalkboard with the end of his broom.

“So,” he said. “If I ever own a place like this, I have to argue with men who own fields, tell stories over flour, and risk people calling me a priest.”

“Only if you want to sleep at night,” Crumb said.

Bryn snorted. “Sleep is overrated.”

“You say that now,” Lorne said. “Wait until the next Lantern Week.”

Mila, broom in hand, looked at the blank space where “Harvest Loaves – 40” had been earlier. It felt good, seeing it empty. Not like a loss. Like a job finished.

She thought of the Dorr crews, breaking bread under the open sky. Of the woman who’d saved three days’ wages for one round on her table. Of the healer and the Guards with their braids. Of the inn three roads away where her parents were probably counting coppers and wishing they could promise their guests more than “good enough.”

“What’s wrong?” Crumb asked quietly as he passed her, carrying a bucket.

“Nothing,” she said. Then, before she could stop herself, “I was just thinking… when I go back to help my family, I don’t want to sell thin promises.”

Crumb stopped.

He set the bucket down and leaned on the broom opposite her.

“Good,” he said simply. “Then pay attention now, while the cost is only flour and hurt feelings.” She swallowed a laugh. “Only.”

“Better to learn here and spill words than out there and spill people,” he said. He straightened. “One day, you may be the one someone like Callen leans on. You’ll have to decide whether to help them look generous or to help them be generous.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be as brave as you,” she said low.

He shook his head. “It’s not bravery. It’s habit. One loaf at a time.”

He picked up the bucket again and headed for the back door to toss the sweepings. As he opened it, cool night air slipped in, brushing over Mila’s hot face.

She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined another chalkboard, in another town, with another hand writing prices. Her hand.

What story would her numbers tell?

She didn’t know yet. But for now, she could learn this one all the way down to the bones. On the slate, she picked up the chalk and carefully erased Harvest Loaves – 40.

Underneath, she wrote in small, neat letters:

“Next year.”

Lorne, passing by, raised an eyebrow. “Can you put it off that long?” Mila smiled, feeling the ache in her arms and the warmth in her chest.

“I can try,” she said.