Before Evelyn made her move on the post office, she made a tactical stop at the general store. While most sweets required strict rationing coupons, the common fruit drops were sold for a penny a piece—no coupons necessary.

Evelyn dropped a staggering fifty cents on a massive haul of fifty hard candies.

"Five generations of my family, and finally a son!" she croaked, pitching her voice deep and gravelly, the sound muffled by a candy tucked under her tongue. "A boy! Sweets for everyone!"

She flung the handfuls of candy into the street like golden grain. Within seconds, a swarm of passersby descended into a frantic scramble. People jostled and lunged, shouting congratulations and blessings for the "newborn son" as they dove for the sugar.

Under the cover of the commotion, Evelyn slipped out of the crowd and neared the post office steps. Seraphina stood there, neck craned, watching the spectacle with a look of pinched disdain.

"Fruit drops? How pathetic," Seraphina muttered. She didn't recognize the bundled figure nearby. With the influx of money and supplies from Julian’s family, she felt far above such peasant squabbles.

Though she claimed not to care, Seraphina’s eyes remained glued to the shouting match breaking out over the last few candies. It was a distraction that lasted perhaps three minutes—long enough for the crowd to disperse.

When Seraphina finally turned back, her eyes stretched wide with a primal, wooden horror.

The crates were gone. The mountain of burlap sacks, the winter bedding, the life-saving supplies—all of it had vanished as if swallowed by the earth.

For three seconds, she was a statue. Then, the silence broke with a high-pitched, marmot-like shriek. "My packages! Where are my packages!"

A few loiterers drifted over, drawn by the scream. "Miss? Did you lose something?" a kind-hearted woman asked, looking concerned.

Seraphina spun in circles, her mind racing. Julian. It has to be Julian. He was playing a cruel joke; he had hidden them to scare her. But as her eyes swept the street, Julian was nowhere to be seen. The realization hit her like a physical blow to the stomach.

"They're gone!" she wailed, her heart feeling as though it were being pierced by a thousand needles. "Everything... so many things... all gone!"

"I saw them," a bystander noted, frowning. "There was a pile of crates right here a minute ago."

"So did I. A regular mountain of them. But in a place like this, people are always hauling things from the post office. Who’s to say who took what?"

The crowd offered plenty of noise but zero answers. Panic-stricken, Seraphina began sprinting down the street, lunging at anyone carrying a parcel.

"That's mine! Give it back!" she screamed, grabbing a man’s arm.

"What's wrong with you?" the man barked, shoving her off. He shoved the shipping label under her nose. "Look at the name, lady! This is mine!"

Seraphina stared at the ink until it blurred, then stumbled away to accost the next person. She searched every alley and corner until her lungs burned, nearly getting into a fistfight with a local laborer before she finally gave up.

When she returned to the post office steps, her face was ghost-white. Her hands shook uncontrollably. Those supplies were their only shield against the northern winter. If Julian found out she had lost everything... would he see her as a burden? A useless, jinxed girl? She bit her lip so hard the iron taste of blood filled her mouth.

In the distance, she saw Julian approaching, leading a slow-moving ox cart.

Terror, cold and sharp, flooded her chest. As Julian drew closer, Seraphina’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed into a dead faint.

Julian let out a strangled cry, rushing forward to catch her. "Seraphina! Seraphina!"

"Do you know this girl?" a witness asked. "She just realized her packages were stolen. She's been hysterical."

Julian’s head snapped up. "Stolen? What do you mean, stolen?"

"The whole lot. Vanished while she wasn't looking."

Julian looked around frantically. Surely they hadn't taken everything? Maybe a crate or two? But the steps were bare. Not even a scrap of twine remained.

"Forget the boxes for a second," someone urged. "Look at her face. You need to get her to a hospital!"

Gritting his teeth against the chaos in his mind, Julian scooped her up. The hospital first. The nightmare could wait.

Evelyn, having executed a flawless retreat, was already miles away on a bus bound for the county seat. Her spatial dimension was stuffed with the Ward family’s "inheritance," but she knew better than to sell those items in her own backyard.

The North was the heart of the nation’s heavy industry—a landscape of military factories and sprawling rail lines. It was the wealthiest region in the country, and where there was a surplus of wages, there was a thriving black market.

After bribing a local woman with a handful of dried mushrooms to learn the layout of the county's illicit trade, Evelyn rolled an old bicycle—formerly Dominic’s—into the eastern market. A bicycle, even a used one, was gold.

"Three years old, but perfectly maintained," she told the first person who asked. "Never a break, never a repair. Thirty dollars, firm."

A middle-aged woman scoffed. "Thirty? For a used frame? I don't care how well you oiled it, it’s second-hand."

Evelyn lowered her head, her eyes brimming with sudden, practiced tears. Her voice came out in a broken whisper. "My father... the doctors say he’s fading. He hasn't much time left. I’m selling the only thing we have left just so he can... so he can have one last decent meal before the end."

The woman’s face softened instantly into an awkward, pained guilt. Thirty dollars was a fair price, and she had only been haggling out of habit. To realize she was squeezing a grieving daughter was more than her conscience could take.

She opened her mouth to agree, but an old man stepped in front of her. "Thirty dollars? I'll take it!"

"Now wait a minute!" the woman snapped, her competitive streak returning. "I was here first!"

"You were complaining about the price," the man countered, handing the bills to Evelyn without a second thought. He patted her hand sympathetically. "Here, child. Buy your father whatever his heart desires. Don't let him leave this world with any regrets."