By midwinter, the cold had teeth.

It bit at Mila’s fingers when she fetched wood from the stack. It gnawed through Bryn’s boots when he ran in late. It sat on Lorne’s shoulders whenever she slipped outside to shake flour off the rugs.

Inside the bakehouse, the oven fought back.

The fire never really went out now. It banked low at night, then flared when Crumb coaxed it, pumping warmth into the bones of the building. People lingered longer in the shop, even after they’d paid, cupping loaves under their arms like hot bricks and drinking in the heat.

Hungry Winter, Crumb called it. Not because there wasn’t any food—there was, mostly—but because everything felt thinner. Light. Patience. Tempers.

Especially on days when Mistress Elka came in. Mila heard her before she saw her.

On this particular morning, she was at the shaping bench, elbows deep in the day’s first batch of rolls. The dough was stiffer than she liked. Flour had been tight that week; Crumb had stretched it by a handful in each sack, muttering about “shipments stuck in mud” and “millers with lazy sons.”

She was just starting to find the rhythm—pinch, fold, turn, tuck—when the bell over the front door gave a sharp jangle, followed by a voice that somehow cut through the hum of the shop like a knife through crust.

“Honestly, Crumb, are you trying to freeze people to death out there? You’d think on a day like this you’d open the door a little sooner and let the smell do its work.”

Mila’s shoulders tightened.

Bryn, who was weighing dough beside her, snorted. “The crow’s back,” he muttered. “Bryn,” Lorne warned under her breath. “Inside voice.”

“You can’t tell me her cloak doesn’t look like it’s about to burst into caws,” he said.

Mila tried not to smile. She’d never said it out loud, but she knew what he meant. Mistress Elka’s cloak was black and too glossy, feathered at the collar, as if she’d skinned a particularly fashionable raven.

“Crumb will hear you,” Lorne murmured. “And then he’ll make us scrub something as penance.” As if summoned, Crumb’s voice floated back from the front.

“Good morning, Mistress Elka,” he said. “The door opens when the bread is ready to be smelled, not a minute earlier. If we let the heat out any sooner, the bread will sulk and refuse to rise.”

Elka huffed. “You’ve been telling that story for ten years. One would think the bread would have grown up by now.”

Mila couldn’t see her from here, but she could picture it perfectly: the tilt of Elka’s chin, the critical sweep of her eyes over the shelves. She’d been coming to the bakery longer than Mila had been alive. Some people said her coin had helped Crumb’s oven get built in the first place, back when the Crossroads was more mud than village.

She bought bread every week. She also complained about it every week. “Check the bottoms on those rolls,” Lorne whispered.

Mila turned them over. The seam lines were neat. Not perfect, but decent. “They’re fine,” Lorne said. “Better than half the rolls she’s eaten without noticing.”

The bell jingled again as someone else entered. The low murmur of customers thickened. Mila tried to focus on the rolls, but Elka’s voice kept rising and falling at the edge of her hearing, like a cracked bell.

“—and last week, the crust was darker. I told my niece, ‘Crumb must be distracted with all those charity loaves he throws away on people who don’t pay.’”

Mila’s hands stilled.

Lorne’s jaw tightened. Bryn slammed a lump of dough on the scale harder than necessary.

They all knew about the jar near the door. The quiet trades. The people Crumb let walk out with bread and no coin when things got truly bad. They also knew he never talked about it loudly.

Ever.

“He doesn’t throw anything away,” Bryn muttered. “He finds mouths for all of it.”

“Except hers,” Lorne said dryly. “Sometimes I think he wants to give it all to someone else just so he doesn’t have to listen to her chew.”

Mila swallowed a laugh and felt guilty immediately. “Maybe she’ll be fast today,” she said.

She was not.

Ten minutes later, Crumb appeared at the bake room doorway, holding a single loaf.

It was one of the big winter rounds—denser than the everyday bread, with a thicker crust to survive long journeys. It should have looked solid and comforting. Instead, it looked like someone had apologized to it.

“She doesn’t like it?” Bryn guessed, eyeing it.

Crumb set the loaf on the bench and tapped the top gently. “She says the score is crooked,” he said. “And that the seeds aren’t as generous as they were last year.”

Mila peered closer. The score did tilt a little to the left. Barely. The seeds had scattered unevenly, but there were still plenty.

“It’s bread,” Bryn said. “Not a mirror.”

Lorne’s eyes flicked to Crumb’s face. “What did you tell her?” she asked.

“That she’s welcome to choose another loaf,” he said. “Or take this one for stew at a lower price.”

“And?” Bryn prompted.

“And she told me she doesn’t pay for crooked work,” Crumb said calmly. “I told her the oven doesn’t bake straight lines for anyone, not even the Queen. She is currently deciding whether she believes me.”

He picked up a bread knife and sliced the loaf cleanly through the middle.

The crumb was beautiful—open and even, with a good chew. The score may have leaned, but the inside didn’t care.

“Does she… know you’re cutting into it?” Mila asked.

“I told her I’d check it,” Crumb said. “If it’s bad, I won’t sell it to anyone.”

“It’s not bad,” Bryn said. “It’s better than anything she’d get from the road stalls.”

“Guests often compare us to the worst thing they’ve eaten,” Lorne said. “It makes them feel clever.”

Mila winced. “That’s harsh.” “So is she,” Lorne replied.

Crumb slid a slice onto a small plate and held it out. “Taste,” he said.

Mila took a bite. The crust crackled under her teeth, then yielded. The crumb was moist without being gummy, sour and sweet in balance.

“It’s good,” she said, surprised at how relieved she felt.

Bryn and Lorne tried theirs. Bryn nodded. Lorne gave a small shrug that meant I approve but don’t want to admit that my mood is lifting.

Crumb took the last piece and chewed thoughtfully. Then he wrapped the remaining loaf in cloth and set it aside.

“What are you going to do?” Bryn asked. “March back out there and tell her she’s wrong?”

Crumb shook his head. “I’m going to offer her a choice,” he said. “Same as before. This loaf at stew price, another at full price, or no loaf at all. But I’m not going to let her throw this one away in front of people who can’t afford to be so offended by a tilted line.”

He picked up the loaf and started for the front.

“Does she know we’re eating her complaints?” Lorne muttered. “If she did, she’d probably send them back too,” Bryn said.

Mila huffed a laugh.

They went back to their work, but their ears stayed tuned to the front.

“You can still have this one,” they heard Crumb say, voice even. “Or another. Or none. But I won’t call it bad bread just because your eye doesn’t like the angle.”

“The angle matters,” Elka insisted. “It will look wrong on the table. People notice these things.”

“Some do,” Crumb agreed. “And some notice that it’s warm and soft and better than the crust they had last winter. You get to choose which table you’re feeding.”

A long pause.

“How much off?” Elka asked at last, grudging.

Mila couldn’t hear Crumb’s answer, but she heard coins clink. The bell jingled again not long after.

When Crumb returned, the loaf was gone. “Which did she take?” Lorne asked.

“This one,” Crumb said, patting his apron where he’d tucked the coins. “After a long negotiation on the topic of crookedness.”

“Did she at least say thank you?” Bryn asked.

“She said, ‘I suppose it will do,’” Crumb replied. “Which is as close to ‘thank you’ as some people get.”

He moved back to his bench and reached for another bowl of dough as if nothing were wrong. Mila’s tension didn’t dissolve so easily.

“How do you not—” she began, then stopped, searching for a safe word. “Throw the loaf at her head?” Bryn supplied.

“Bryn,” Lorne said, though she sounded a little tempted.

“How do you not… resent her?” Mila asked instead. “She comes in here, complains about everything, hints that you’re too generous with people who have less, and still expects you to treat her like… like…”

“The center of the oven,” Bryn said. Mila nodded helplessly.

Crumb wiped his hands and rested his palms on the bench, leaning into it. “Do you?” he asked.

Mila blinked. “Do I what?”

“Resent her,” he said. “Be honest. I can hold it.”

Mila stared at the dough. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “Yes.”

“Always,” Bryn said without hesitation. “Every time she opens her mouth, my hands itch.”

Lorne hesitated. “I… don’t know if ‘resent’ is the word,” she said slowly. “She makes me tired. And… sharper than I like. I start thinking in nicknames instead of names.”

Crumb’s eyes glinted. “Nicknames?” he asked. Mila shot Lorne a look. Lorne sighed.

“Bryn calls her the Rook,” she said. “I sometimes call her… the Vulture. In my head. Because she circles. And picks.”

Crumb hummed softly. “Mm. Birds of appetite.”

Bryn bristled. “You’re not going to tell us we’re wrong?”

“I’m going to tell you that I understand,” Crumb said. “And then I’m going to tell you why I don’t let myself talk about her that way when I can hear it.”

“Because it’s unkind?” Mila guessed. “Because it’s lazy,” he said.

They all looked up at that.

“Lazy?” Bryn repeated. “Mocking Mistress ‘I don’t pay for crooked work’ Elka is the only joy some mornings.”

Crumb picked up a scrap of dough and rolled it into two small balls. He set them on the bench between them.

“You remember when we burned my loaves and yours survived?” he asked Mila. She flushed. “I’m trying,” she said. “You bring it up often.”

“We learned something that day,” he said. “We learned that blame belongs where the hands were.” He nodded at Bryn. “Later, at the flour line, we learned that speed without trust is theft. And at Lantern Week, we learned names are not just marks. Yes?”

They nodded, a little warily. Lessons usually meant they’d end up doing more work.

“Today,” Crumb said, “we learn that what we say about guests, when they’re not here, is part of what we serve them when they are.”

Bryn made a face. “That sounds like wizard talk.”

“It’s baker talk,” Crumb said mildly. He pointed at the two balls of dough. “Names,” he said. “Call the first one ‘the Rook.’ Call the second one ‘Elka.’”

Mila frowned. “Out loud?” “Out loud,” Crumb said.

Bryn smirked. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered. “Fine. Rook. Elka.”

“Good,” Crumb said. “Now, with your hands, treat the Rook the way you feel when she’s complaining. Shape it like she’s wasting your time. Knock it around. Rush it. Then treat Elka like she’s the tired woman who’s been buying bread here since before you were born, whose joints ache in the cold, who lost her husband three winters ago and has been trying to keep her accounts straight ever since.”

Mila stared at him. “How do you know she’s tired?” she asked softly.

“I listen,” Crumb said. “And I count the days she doesn’t come in. And I remember the year she wore black from Lantern to Lantern.” He nodded at the dough. “Go on.”

Bryn hesitated, then grabbed the ball he’d tagged as Rook.

He slammed it against the bench harder than necessary. He kneaded it with short, rough motions, squeezing more than folding. It tightened quickly, resisting.

With the other ball, labeled Elka, he moved slower. Not saintly slow. Just… less angry. He folded, turned, gave it enough attention that the dough responded.

“Feel the difference?” Crumb asked. “They’re tiny,” Bryn said. “Who cares.”

“The dough does,” Crumb said. “It can’t help it. It doesn’t know why your hands are different. It only knows they are.”

He reached out and took each piece in turn.

The Rook dough was uneven, tight on one side and slack on the other. The Elka dough was smoother. Not perfect, but more consistent.

“If you shape them into rolls,” he said, “the Rook will bake up tough, with a hard seam and a tight crumb. The Elka will be softer. Even if they go on the same tray. Even if the oven doesn’t know what you called them.”

“We’re not actually shaping her bread while calling her names,” Bryn protested. “We do it after.”

“After,” Crumb repeated. “In the same room. With the same hands. With the same heart beating in your chest.”

He set the dough down gently.

“You think words float away,” he said. “Most of them don’t. They sit in your shoulders. In your jaw. In the way you slam a tray down because you’re still hearing someone complain who isn’t even in the building anymore.”

He looked at Lorne. “Who gets your worst hands?” he asked. “The person who made you tired, or the one after them who had nothing to do with it?”

Lorne’s mouth thinned. She looked away.

Mila thought of the times she’d snapped a crust a little too hard after someone had haggled over a coin. Of the child who’d flinched when the sound startled him.

“So we’re not allowed to… be honest about guests?” Mila asked, frustrated. “We have to pretend they’re all perfect?”

“You’re allowed to tell the truth,” Crumb said. “You’re even allowed to say, ‘That person was rude. That person hurt me. That person is exhausting.’ But when we make it a name—Rook, Vulture, Leech—we stop talking about the behaviour and start talking about the person as if that’s all they are.”

“Sometimes it feels like it is all they are,” Bryn muttered. “Then you’re not looking hard enough,” Crumb said.

They fell quiet.

Outside, a cart rattled past, wheels crunching over frozen ruts. The oven hummed. Somewhere in the front, the bell jingled as another customer left.

Crumb wiped his hands and picked up a clean cloth.

“Here’s the rule we try to keep in this kitchen,” he said. “You can say one hard thing about a guest, as long as you can also say one true kind thing. Something that doesn’t excuse them. Just… balances the recipe. Like salt and honey.”

“That sounds like work,” Bryn said. “So does bread,” Crumb replied.

He nodded at the two lumps of dough. “Finish them,” he said. “One as you were. One with… balance.”

Bryn scowled, but he did it.

This time, as he worked the piece he’d called Rook, he tried—reluctantly—to think of something kind. It took longer than he wanted to admit. Finally, he grumbled, “She’s… never late paying.” He muttered it like a curse, but it was true. “She also… always leaves a coin in the jar at Lantern Week. Even when she complains about it.”

His hands softened a fraction. The dough responded.

With the Elka piece, he thought of the way she’d stood in the doorway last winter when the snow was bad, handing out a basket of old coats to children. He’d seen it once from the alley, when she hadn’t known anyone was watching. He hadn’t thought about it since.

He folded that memory in as he shaped.

When he was done, the two lumps weren’t identical, but they were closer.

Crumb took them both and set them on a separate tray.

“We’ll bake them,” he said. “We’ll taste them later. Not to see if your thoughts salted the crumb. Just to remind you that what you carry into your work doesn’t stay in your head.”

He moved back to his main bench and picked up a waiting loaf. Mila watched him for a moment.

“You never talk about guests?” she asked. “Not even to yourself?”

“Oh, I talk,” he said. “Ask the oven. It hears more sermons than the whole village combined.” They smiled despite themselves.

“But when I do,” he went on, “I try to remember: no one is just how they treat me on their hungriest day. Or their loneliest. Or their most anxious about coin.”

He brushed flour off the top of a loaf.

“Mistress Elka complains about crooked scores and charity jars,” he said. “She also sends her niece here with sacks of grain every year, more than she has to. She keeps her workers on through winter when other landowners send theirs away. Both things are true.”

“That doesn’t make it easier to listen to her,” Lorne said.

“No,” Crumb agreed. “But it makes it easier not to let her turn us into the worst version of ourselves.”

He met each of their eyes in turn.

“You don’t owe her your softness,” he said. “You owe yourselves the version of you that isn’t sharpened on her. We can set boundaries and still refuse to salt the dough with contempt.”

Bryn pulled a face. “I’d rather salt her coat.”

Crumb chuckled. “You can imagine it, if it helps. Just wash your hands before you touch the bread.”

They laughed, tension easing. The day rolled on.

Mistress Elka left with her slightly crooked, slightly discounted loaf, muttering, “It will do,” under her breath. Other guests came and went—some kind, some hurried, some distracted.

Mila caught herself once, halfway to calling a difficult customer by a sharp nickname in her head

—and stopped. Instead, she named the behaviour: rude, not listening, nervous. Somehow, it felt less heavy.

Bryn started to say, “Here comes the—” at one point and changed it mid-sentence. “Here comes Mistress Laughter,” he said instead, as a notorious gossiper walked in.

Lorne almost dropped a tray. “That’s not better,” she hissed.

“It’s more honest,” Bryn said. “She laughs at everything, even when it’s not funny.” “She laughs at other people’s misfortune,” Lorne muttered.

“So we call that out,” Mila said. “Not her whole self.” It was awkward. And slow. And they kept forgetting. But it was a start.

When the Rook-and-Elka rolls came out of the oven, Crumb set them aside to cool. At the end of the day, when the shutters were closed and the floor swept, he sliced them, and they all tasted, silently.

They weren’t magical. One was a little tougher than the other. Both were edible. Both were bread.

“That’s it?” Bryn said. “No thunder. No instant karma.”

“Did you expect Mistress Elka to burst in and apologize?” Lorne asked.

“I expected something,” Bryn said, frustrated. “It feels like all this work in my head is just… for us.”

Crumb smiled faintly.

“It is,” he said. “That’s the point.” He tapped the softer roll.

“She’ll never know you tried to handle her name more carefully today,” he said. “She may never change at all. But you will. Lorne will. Mila will. The next difficult guest will find you with a little more room between their words and your hands.”

He looked at Bryn.

“And one day, when you have your own bench,” he said, “you won’t teach your apprentices that the way we survive Hungry Winter is by chewing up the people who annoy us. You’ll teach them something else.”

Bryn swallowed.

“What if I forget?” he asked.

Crumb shrugged. “Then you’ll be like me and have to learn it again every year,” he said. “It’s not a one-time lesson. It’s like feeding the starter. Over and over.”

He wiped the crumbs from the board and tossed the test rolls’ ends into the scraps bucket for tomorrow’s crumbs.

“Besides,” he added, “if we ever start serving pure contempt, the bread will know. It’ll taste like it was made by people who don’t actually like feeding anyone. And then we won’t have to worry about difficult guests, because we won’t have any guests left at all.”

Mila thought of the inn three roads away. Of regulars who hadn’t come back. Of talk of a place in the next town where the bread was “warmer,” whatever that meant.

She looked at her flour-dusted hands.

“I don’t want to be that kind of baker,” she said quietly.

“Good,” Crumb replied. “Neither do I. That’s why we make these little rules. Not to be polite. To stay human.”

Later that week, Mistress Elka came in again.

She frowned at the shelves, poked at a loaf, and sniffed.

“These squires you have helping you,” she said to Crumb, gesturing vaguely toward the bake room, “do they know what ‘even’ means?”

Mila, peeking through the gap, felt annoyance flare.

Bryn took a breath like he was about to say something stupid. Lorne stepped on his foot.

Crumb only said, “They’re learning. As we all are. Will you be taking your usual?” Elka studied him for a moment.

“You’re stubborn,” she said. “So are you,” he replied.

She huffed. “There are easier bakers to argue with.”

“There are,” Crumb agreed. “But their bread doesn’t know your name.” She blinked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered. “Just give me something that won’t embarrass me in front of my sister.”

He wrapped a loaf and handed it over. Mila watched his hands.

They were steady.

They didn’t slam or hurry or slack.

When the door closed behind Elka, Bryn whispered, “Rook,” under his breath—and then added, a little reluctantly, “Who feeds more mouths than she has to.”

Lorne smirked. Mila smiled.

Crumb, tidying the counter, pretended not to hear.

Inside, though, the room felt a tiny bit warmer, as if the oven had pushed back against the winter for one more day.

And in the bake room, the dough under their fingers—unaware of crows and cloaks and cracked tempers—simply responded to the hands that held it, learning, slowly, to carry both truth and kindness without tearing.