The first frost came quiet.

No dramatic storm, no howling wind—just a thin, glittering film on the barrels and a sharpness in the air that made Lorne’s breath show when she stepped out behind the bakehouse to shake the crumbs from the cloths.

Winter was not here yet. But it was leaning on the doorframe, watching. Inside, the bakehouse smelled like every season at once.

There was still a whisper of summer spice in the corners, from the last of the fair twists. The shelves held harvest rounds cooling in neat rows. On a side table, Mila had set to proof a small batch of test dough for winter rolls, heavier and denser.

The year had layered itself into the walls.

Lorne carried the cleaned cloths back in, fingers stiff around the basket handle. Bryn was at the front, arguing with the slate as if it could argue back.

“Year-end ledger,” he muttered, chalk between his fingers. “Crumb, how do you write down ‘sent perfectly good flour upriver instead of turning it into things people can actually chew nearby’ without sounding ungrateful?”

“You just did,” Crumb called from the oven, where he was rotating a tray. “Underline ‘ungrateful’ if it helps.”

Mila snorted softly at the stove.

“He’s going to start color-coding our feelings,” she said. “Red for regret. Blue for good ideas that hurt.”

“Don’t give him ideas,” Lorne said, hanging the cloths on their pegs. She looked, out of habit, at the big slate.

The three columns they’d drawn months ago were still there: House. Hearth. Open Hand.

Around them, in smaller script, were all the notes that had accreted over the year:

● what we do when we fail

● saying no when coin is loud

● eat the lesson together

● road loaves (for elsewhere) (we’ll never see them eaten)

● but someone will

It looked less like a list now and more like a conversation they’d been having with themselves. Crumb shut the oven door with a firm, calm thump.

“That’s the last of the harvest orders,” he said. “No more rounds today unless you like baking on fumes.”

“Are we… caught up?” Mila asked cautiously.

“For the first time in two weeks,” Crumb said. “So before the next thing falls out of the sky, we’re going to do something reckless.”

“What’s that?” Bryn asked warily.

“We’re going to sit down in the middle of the day,” Crumb said. “And talk.” Bryn groaned. “Knew it,” he said. “Conversations. My worst enemy.” “Bring your stool, ledger boy,” Crumb said. “This one involves you too.”

He wiped his hands and went to the main bench, setting out four mismatched cups and a small pot of weak tea. It wasn’t much, but it felt… ceremonial.

Lorne exchanged a glance with Mila.

“This is either going to be very good or very bad,” she whispered.

Mila whispered back, “If it was very bad, he’d have baked something sweet first.” “True,” Lorne murmured.

They gathered around the bench, perching on stools: Bryn with his ledger, Mila folding her hands to keep them from fidgeting, Lorne with the feeling of unfinished dough still on her palms.

Crumb poured tea.

“To the year,” he said quietly. “Not finished yet, but far enough along we can see its shape.” They clinked cups awkwardly.

“Is this where you tell us all the things we did wrong?” Bryn asked. “Because I have a list already started. We could harmonize them.”

Crumb smiled.

“Some of the things you did wrong turned out to be useful,” he said. “I’m more interested in what we do next.”

He reached behind him and picked up a folded packet from the small shelf by the window. Lorne recognized the paper immediately.

Guild paper.

Her stomach flicked.

“More road loaves?” she asked.

“No,” Crumb said. “Not this time. Kett wrote to say the first batch arrived. That there were arguments over who got which heel. That one of the elders cried into his soup. That someone tried to hoard a loaf and ended up sharing anyway because their niece glared at them.”

Mila smiled, eyes soft.

“He said thank you, in about a dozen sideways ways,” Crumb continued. “He also said: ‘Don’t burn yourselves out trying to fix all the holes upriver. We need you downriver too.’”

He set the packet aside.

“Today’s letters aren’t his,” he said. “They’re yours.” Bryn straightened. “Ours?” he echoed.

Crumb reached into his apron and pulled out three smaller envelopes, edges smudged. He set one in front of each of them.

Lorne stared at hers.

Her name was on it. In Crumb’s cramped script, but the ink on the seal looked… different. “As you know,” Crumb said, “this was your first full year together. It won’t be your last. Not

unless one of you burns the place down, in which case I reserve the right to reassign your fate.” “Good news,” Bryn said. “We only scorched it a little.”

Crumb gave him a look and went on.

“I’ve had conversations,” he said. “With people who’ve sat at this bench. With Kett. With a farmer who thinks Bryn could be bullied into running a mill. With Mila’s aunt at the inn. With the woman who runs the schoolhouse. With a fool upriver who wants to build too many ovens on too many riverbanks and insists he’ll need people who know what bread means.”

He nodded at their envelopes.

“Those,” he said, “are invitations. Not orders. Paths that have opened because of how you’ve worked this year. Some are near. Some far. Some for now, some for later.”

Mila swallowed.

“Why… give them to us all at once?” she asked.

“Because the year’s turning,” Crumb said. “And it’s my job, at least once before the frost settles in, to remind you of something important.”

He met each of their eyes in turn.

“This place is not a cage,” he said quietly. “It’s an oven. Its job is to shape you with heat and time. Not to keep you half-baked on this bench forever.”

Lorne’s fingers tightened on the envelope.

“Do you… want us to leave?” she asked, the words coming out smaller than she liked. “No,” Crumb said, and there was zero hesitation.

Her chest eased for a heartbeat.

“But I’m not allowed to want that more than I want you to become who you’re supposed to be,” he went on. “If that means staying—good. If that means another town, another oven, another kind of work… also good. Heartbreaking for me. But good.”

Bryn tried for a joke and almost made it. “Are you breaking up with us?” he asked.

“Not today,” Crumb said. “Today I’m just telling you that the door is real. That if you walk through it, I won’t slam it on your heel.”

They were quiet.

The envelopes sat there like small, patient loaves waiting to rise. “Open them,” Crumb said gently. “Read. Then we talk.”

Mila opened hers first, because she knew if she waited, she’d talk herself out of it. Inside was a single sheet.

She read silently, lips moving.

“A post at the inn?” she said finally, incredulous. “As… head of kitchen?”

“The innkeeper came by after the day the bread ran out,” Crumb said. “Said she’d never seen someone manage a crowd and a pot at the same time like you did. She can’t pay what I’d like to pay you. But she can offer a roof and a wage and the chance to feed travelers three times a day without baking your eyebrows off.”

Mila’s hand trembled slightly as she read the rest.

“It’s… not just that,” she said quietly. “She says… she wants to learn some of our Open Hand dishes. To make a pot on thin days for whoever can’t pay.”

She looked up, eyes bright. “You arranged this?” she asked.

“I answered when she asked if I’d be offended,” Crumb said. “I told her I’d be proud. And sad. And that those two things can live in the same bowl.”

Mila pressed her lips together.

“I’m not—” She stopped. Swallowed. “I’m not ready. Not yet. I still burn the syrup half the time.” “You burned it twice this year,” Crumb said. “And you caught it both times.”

She shook her head.

“I want at least one more winter here,” she said. “To see if I can make Lantern Week broth without crying into it like a child.”

“Then stay,” Crumb said simply. “Write back and say, ‘Not yet. Ask next year.’ If they can’t wait, that’s their answer, not yours.”

Bryn opened his envelope with less care, tearing it slightly.

A small, folded note slipped out along with a rougher, thicker paper. He read the top one first; his face changed as he did.

“My da,” he said. “He wrote.”

“Farmer Harrow brought that back last market day,” Crumb said. “Said he’d run into your father at the grain yard.”

Bryn’s voice was rough as he read under his breath, then:

“He wants me to come help at the mill,” he said. “Says the old man who runs it is finally talking about retiring. They need someone who understands weights and water and isn’t afraid of splinters.”

Crumb nodded. “You’ve spent half this year arguing with our sacks,” he said. “Seems someone noticed.”

Bryn lifted the thicker paper. Kett’s neat script stared back.

“He says,” Bryn read, “if I ever wanted to learn how the river mills work, he could find me a berth on a boat for a season. To count and curse and charm flour on the move.”

He huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh.

“So my options are: go home and get striped with grain dust,” he said, “or go upriver and get seasick with a ledger.”

“Or stay,” Crumb said. “And keep knocking your head against my doorframe.” Bryn looked up, eyes unexpectedly wet.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked. Crumb smiled, faint and sad.

“I think you’re not done arguing with my sacks yet,” he said. “But I also think there’s a part of you that won’t settle until you know how every other mill on this river weighs their grain.”

Bryn’s mouth twisted.

“I… want to stay for harvest,” he said. “At least. Maybe for winter. Maybe longer. I don’t know. The idea of leaving and not being here for Lantern Week makes my stomach… wrong.”

“Then tell your da that,” Crumb said. “And Kett. Paths don’t vanish if you don’t jump the moment they appear. The good ones don’t, anyway.”

Bryn let out a shaky breath.

“I thought you were going to shove us out,” he said. “Tell us it’s selfish to stay when there’s need elsewhere.”

Crumb snorted.

“You’re apprentices, not sacrifices,” he said. “If I start throwing you into the river every time someone writes a sad letter, I’ve missed the point of half the loaves on that board.”

Lorne still hadn’t opened hers.

Her envelope sat on the bench like it knew it was last on purpose. “Lorne,” Crumb said gently. “Before your tea goes completely cold.” Her fingers felt clumsy as she broke the seal.

There were two pieces of paper inside.

The first was small and wrinkled, as if it had been folded and unfolded too many times. The second was crisp and new.

She read the wrinkled one first.

It was from her mother.

Just a few lines, written in a careful, unsteady script Lorne knew well.

We heard stories about you from a trader. About a girl at the Crossroads who braids bread like rivergrass and talks back to the baker. Your father says that sounds like you. We have a little place now at the crossroads near home. If you ever want to come back and show the neighbors that bread can be more than flat rounds, the bench is there.

Underneath, a PS:

We’re proud. Even when we’re cross.

Lorne swallowed past the lump in her throat. The second letter bore no familiar hand.

She recognized Kett’s script in the corner, but most of it looked… different. Formal. Overly polite.

She skimmed.

Then she blinked, hard.

“What?” Bryn demanded. “What is it?”

She read out loud before she could think better of it.

“‘To the apprentice known in the valley as the girl with the braids,’” she began, earning a snort from Bryn. “‘My name is Hara. I run a small shop in the port—no sign yet, just the smell, as Crumb would say. Kett tells me you’re the one responsible for the Spring Crowns that made him rude about everyone else’s bread for a week.’”

Crumb coughed into his tea, hiding a smile.

“‘I would like to learn that braid, properly,’” Lorne went on. “‘And others, if you’re willing. I can’t pay much coin, but I can offer a room above the shop and a bench with your name on it for as long as you like. I’m not asking you to come now. But if, one day, your feet itch and your hands want different dough, know there’s a place at my oven where what you’ve learned won’t be wasted. —Hara, corner of Fifth and the Fishmarket, if Kett hasn’t gotten lost again.’”

Lorne lowered the paper slowly. Her heart was beating too fast.

“A bench with my name on it,” she said faintly.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Bryn said. “They don’t know how bossy you are yet.” “Bold of you to assume they haven’t met me,” Lorne said automatically.

Then, quieter: “I don’t want to go.”

Crumb’s eyes softened.

“Good,” he said. “I didn’t give you the letter because I want you to go. I gave it to you because I want you to know you could. That your hands could live on other wood and not forget what they learned here.”

Lorne looked from the paper to the slate. House. Hearth. Open Hand.

“What are we?” she asked suddenly. “On that board.” Crumb tilted his head. “Explain.”

“The three of us,” she said. “Where do we go? House? Hearth? Open Hand?” Mila let out a small noise. Bryn shifted, uncomfortable.

“That’s… not how it works,” Crumb said slowly.

“Feels like it is,” Lorne said. “House recipes travel. Hearth recipes stay. Open Hand we give away. Are we… hearth? Meant to stay stuck here? Or house? Meant to be branded and shipped around? Or open hand—thrown to whoever needs us more?”

Crumb was quiet for a long moment.

“The board is for bread,” he said at last. “You’re people.” “That dodges the question,” Bryn muttered.

Crumb sighed.

“All right,” he said. “As far as my tired brain can tell…” He nodded at Bryn. “You’re House.” Bryn blinked. “I am?”

“You’re good wherever grain and water meet,” Crumb said. “Crossroads. Mill. Boat. You’ll argue with any sack in any town and probably make it better. You’re meant to travel, at least eventually. To see how many ways there are to mis-measure flour and fix it.”

He nodded at Mila.

“You,” he said, “are Open Hand.” Mila’s eyes went wide.

“That sounds terrifying,” she said.

“It is,” Crumb said gently. “You’re at your best when the pot is thin and the room is full anyway. When someone needs a bowl who doesn’t have coin. You’ll always end up somewhere people are hungry in ways they can’t name. Inn. Kitchen. Maybe a place we haven’t thought of yet.”

He turned to Lorne.

“And you,” he said, “are Hearth.” Lorne’s breath caught.

“You’re saying I can’t leave,” she said.

“I’m saying you carry this place with you in a way the others don’t,” Crumb said. “If you stay, the valley will have a keeper of its shapes. If you go, wherever you land will feel a little bit like here, whether they deserve it or not.”

He shrugged.

“Hearth doesn’t mean ‘never moves,’” he said. “It means wherever it is, people gather. If, one day, you decide to take that hearth to another corner of the world, this one will miss you. But it won’t be gone. It’ll be in every braid you teach someone else.”

Lorne blinked hard.

“That was… too kind,” she said. “Please say something rude to balance it.” “You leave flour on the bench,” he said. “Constantly.”

“That’s better,” she muttered.

They sat like that for a while, each of them holding their thin little futures in paper.

The oven ticked softly as it cooled. Outside, a wagon rattled past, the sound muffled by the new frost.

“So what do we do now?” Bryn asked finally. “Just… go back to kneading and pretend we don’t know our lives might be elsewhere?”

Crumb shook his head.

“We bake a loaf for us,” he said.

Mila raised an eyebrow. “We do that all the time.”

“A specific one,” Crumb said. “Every year, at the turn, I bake a staff loaf. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with whoever’s foolish enough to still be standing here. We mark it together. Eat it together. It keeps the year from sliding out of my hands without at least one bite I can point to and say, ‘That was us.’”

Lorne’s chest warmed.

“Well then,” she said, standing. “What are we waiting for?”

They mixed the dough together—nothing fancy, just a good, honest loaf. A little of the sourdough, a bit of honey, a handful of seeds Mila tossed in “for surprises.”

Crumb let them do most of the work.

“You know how,” he said, stepping back. “I’ll only interfere if you try to make it too clever.” “That feels like a personal attack,” Lorne said, but she didn’t reach for anything extra.

They shaped it as a round—simple, solid, big enough that all four of them would get more than a token slice.

When it came time to score, Crumb handed them each a lame. “Four marks,” he said. “No more. No less.”

“Like the wedding loaf,” Bryn said.

“Similar,” Crumb replied. “But this one only has to survive us, not two families.” Lorne went first.

She cut a small braid along one side—a suggestion of three strands woven into one line.

Mila added a curl of steam rising from the center—a spiral that looked like a question and an answer at the same time.

Bryn, after some thought, made a single bold slash at the other side, intersecting theirs just enough to annoy Lorne and make Mila smile.

They looked at Crumb. He hesitated.

Then he dipped his thumb in flour and pressed a small, crooked cross in the bare space between their marks.

“Flour keeps talking longer than knives do,” he said. “I’ll take the dust.” They baked it.

While it was in the oven, they went back to the day’s tasks—sweeping, stacking, setting aside the last of the harvest orders for pickup. The smell of the staff loaf eventually filled the room, warmer and somehow more intimate than the others.

When it came out, they didn’t wait for it to cool properly.

They cut into it while it was still steaming, yelping when they burned their fingers and laughing anyway.

The crumb was open and tender, the seeds Mila had scattered giving small, pleasant surprises.

They ate standing around the bench, dipping torn pieces into a pot of soup Mila had resurrected from yesterday’s leftovers.

“Nervous?” Bryn asked Lorne quietly, nodding at her letters, which sat folded by her cup. “Yes,” she said. “No. All of it.”

“Good,” he said. “Means you’re paying attention.” “Thief,” she said. “That’s my line.”

He grinned.

Crumb watched them, chewing slowly.

“You know,” he said, “five years from now, maybe none of us will be here.” “Cheery,” Bryn said.

“Maybe this bench will have new fools leaning on it,” Crumb went on. “Maybe Kett’s guild ovens will finally exist. Maybe the inn will have a soup that doesn’t terrify me. Maybe there will be a boy who walks in here and thinks this is how it’s always been.”

“A boy?” Mila asked.

“Could be a girl,” Crumb said easily. “Or someone who doesn’t know what they are yet. Point is: they’ll see the loaves and not the hands that taught them.”

Lorne swallowed, bread thick in her throat. “That… hurts,” she said.

“It should,” Crumb said. “Loss is the price of time. But here’s the other part: they’ll still be eating what you made. Not the exact loaves. Those are gone. But the habits. The lines. The way we say no. The way we cut failures in quarters instead of hiding them. The way we send some bread away and don’t brag about it.”

He nodded at the slate.

“That board is what we’ve really been baking this year,” he said. “The rest is crumbs.” They turned to look at it.

House. Hearth. Open Hand.

What we do when we fail. Saying no when coin is loud. Eat the lesson together. Road loaves (for elsewhere).

And now, in the middle of it all, four floury fingerprints where Crumb had braced his hand at some point without thinking.

Lorne reached for the chalk.

“Just one more line,” she said softly.

She wrote, under everything else:

● We don’t own the paths. We only keep the ovens warm.

Mila read it out loud. Bryn nodded slowly.

Crumb smiled, tired and proud.

“That,” he said, “is a good way to end a year.” Outside, the frost thickened as the sun slid down. Inside, four people finished their loaf and their tea.

None of them knew, not really, which invitation they’d take, or when, or what roads would turn under their feet.

But the bench was warm.

The oven, banked for the night, still radiated a quiet heat.

And on the slate, in crooked chalk lines and smudged flour, a year of bread had written itself into something that would outlast them all.