When Lena woke up in the morning in Lucien’s Arboretum bolthole, Lucien was already up and dressed, having breakfast and preparing to leave.

“I have work to do” – he said, preoccupied. “You take your time – just pull the door shut behind you, and it will lock itself. You can always open it from inside – you are not locked in here, but you cat get yourself locked out.”

“I’ll be fine” – she came up to him at the table, embracing him from behind his chair. “You seem tense.”

“Well…” – he sighed. “I have to see a potential client with strange conditions, and then I have a contract to fulfil that might prove a challenge.”

“Is that why last night…”

“What?” – he spun around, looking worried. “Too intense?”

Lena pulled up a chair, sitting down next to him, still not letting go of him. She shook her head slowly.

“No” – she smiled. “You sensed me perfectly. But you couldn’t relax yourself.”

“Yeah, it’s true, I suppose” – he smiled back at her. “Not till the very end.” He paused, looking in her eyes. “You are getting to know me.”

…

Lena didn’t stay long after Lucien left. She still felt tired from all the travels of the week before, and she felt like she needed some time to get her head in order. Normally she would go home to Bravil, or may be even cross to the Shivering Isles, but now she wanted to go to Cheydinhal. When Lucien brought some of his gear to the Wolf Sanctuary last time, Lena realised she didn’t have the right furniture for two people. Oh, he was not moving in, it was still her house… But things had changed. She no longer needed a second bed upstairs for friends to stay the night, they wouldn’t anyway, not now that she was… what? “No longer unattached” – she thought. It took some getting used to.

…

“We can have it all changed for you straight away” – Borba was all smiles, taking Lena’s order for a change of furniture. “We have it all in stock, Magra can be there tomorrow morning. It’s best if you supervise, just so he doesn’t touch anything he shouldn’t, in his enthusiasm.” She turned to Magra, giving him a hard long look. Magra looked up briefly, muttered something unintelligible and went back to his work of fixing an old chair. Lena watched with amusement.

“Magra been giving you trouble?” – she chuckled.

“Well…” – Borba beamed at her. “May be a little. You’ve got to nip that sort of thing in the bud. Especially with Orcs – can’t keep his hands to himself, to say nothing of the other parts of his body.” She looked over at him with a mixture of anger and tenderness. He muttered something again, this time Lena could catch “Orc” and “not our way”. Borba seemed to have heard everything clearly though. “Not our way?” – anger won over, she looked at Magra with her eyes narrowing. “If I can do it, so can you. Not here in Cheydinhal – never where you live. Besides, she’s an elf! You’ll be the laughing stock of everyone we know, carrying on like that with a Dunmer!”

“At least she’s not a human!” – Magra retorted with anger of his own. “How many Bretons have you squashed?”

“I can’t help it if they are so fragile” – Borba shrugged. “I like Bretons, they’ve got style.” She beamed at Lena again. “Don’t worry, they aren’t dead. Just ruffled a bit, is all” – she winked.

Lena nodded, with a twinkle in her eye. But she felt it was best to change the topic.

“I need some skooma” – she looked straight at Borba. “Do you know where I can get some?”

“Yes” – Borba nodded, looking at Lena with a neutral expression. “For yourself?”

“No” – Lena smiled, noting to herself that Borba didn’t seem to judge. “For someone in the Shivering Isles.”

“Caldana” – Borba chuckled. “She’s safer there than she was ever this side of the Gates of Madness. Just see our branch in Bravil – tell them I sent you, and they’ll let you in.”

“So, that’s the trick then” – Lena grinned. “They’d never let me in, not in all these years.”

“They don’t want the same thing to happen to them as what happened to S’krivva” – Borba winked. “Good riddance, by the way. Her sister moved into her house, I hear. And that one is an actual dealer in Elsweyer imports – we will soon be getting some as well.”

“So you don’t deal with the likes of S’krivva?” – Lena was a bit surprised. Borba’s business was stretching the law in places, after all.

“Thieves Guild? No” – Borba shook her head firmly. “The Tong disapproves of that. Camona Tong” – she added with an afterthought. “Not the other one.”

“Of course.” Lena paused, thinking of something. “Well, if there’s anything we can do for you…”

“We’ll be in touch in the usual way” – Borba beamed, closing the topic.

They exchanged glances of understanding, and Lena left the shop.

It was a beautiful summer evening, the air was warm and the insects were buzzing about, even after dark. The frogs already started their chorus in the pond, and night blossoms were opening their petals. Lena went up the path to the castle, turning off into the gardens, now fully finished.

“Magra does know his stuff” – she thought, walking along a winding path. Cheydinhal gardens were once again a place to be.