Page 2 of Wizards & Weavers (Cozy Questing #1)

At least the metal-clad warrior had been kinder than most. Every day since the dungeon appeared, the more uncouth sort of adventurer would drop in, running their grubby mitts over the merchandise, disrupting the carefully arranged rainbow Braiden had made of the yarns up front.

He couldn’t bear the idea of explaining, once again, that a ball of yarn was not meant to be tossed like, well, a ball.

And no one, naturally, not a single one of them would buy a single blessed thing.

Nor could Braiden blame them. This new rush of adventurers coming to Weathervale had come for the dungeon.

These people wanted to buy weapons, sharpening stones, sturdy pieces of armor.

What use were the fine supplies at Beadle’s Needles on an expedition down a dungeon, of all places?

Not one of them would sit and listen to Braiden praising the awesome insulating qualities of othergoat wool, spun from the fleece of a rare and difficult breed of caprine that were supposedly majestic and beautiful to behold.

Not one of them would deign to hear Braiden’s dreams of roaming the countryside to find one of these elusive goats, or to brave dank caverns in search of spider silk worthy of spinning into gorgeous garments.

It was the new thing in town — or on the outskirts, to be specific.

The dungeon had made itself known out of a split in the earth no more than a month ago.

There had been, as the townsfolk described it, a kaboom.

This wasn’t the sort of thing anyone expected around a peaceful seaside town like Weathervale.

Even the local alchemists knew that too much kabooming was bad for business.

Braiden had been in the shop that day, arranging the yarns by color, sorting the beads by material.

Clay in this container, glass beads in that one, wood in another.

Perfect and all in place. Not that it ultimately mattered.

The explosion had sent a powerful wind through Weathervale, ripping up shingles, rattling the windows, shaking the floorboards.

And down onto the floorboards they all went: the hanging displays, the skeins of yarn, and all of Braiden’s carefully sorted beads.

He’d spent the rest of the afternoon prying beads out of the floorboards with a knife.

It wasn’t until he’d visited the tavern after work that he thought to wonder where the noise had actually come from.

Granny Bethilda had once joked that Braiden wouldn’t notice a dragon flying overhead once he had his fingers running through some yarn — a case of actual entanglement. She smiled at him out of the little framed portrait on the counter. He smiled back. She was right, after all.

It didn’t take much for Braiden to be enraptured by his work, even when that work wasn’t very profitable.

He tended to neglect more mundane tasks.

Like making sure a pot didn’t boil over, or making sure prospective customers didn’t have to bring in embarrassing bills for him.

Just random, unrelated examples, of course.

But how often he’d wondered how different his life would be if he didn’t feel the need — no, the responsibility of carrying the family business forward. He might have more friends, and far fewer finished sweaters. So many of them piled up in the back room, not a single one sold since winter ended.

Something had to change. But what?

He opened the door to the backroom, already dreading the sight that awaited him. Years and years of Granny Bethilda endlessly stitching her piles of scarves and sweaters, and years more of Braiden learning how to make them as her apprentice.

How much yarn had they spent? How many miles of rainbow had gone into building this garish graveyard? Braiden raised his head, following the mismatched mountain of sweaters with his eyes. It went so high that the topmost layer of sweaters brushed against the ceiling.

What were they thinking? Sure, Braiden needed to learn the business and study Granny Bethilda’s weaving magic along with it. But how had it come to this? How did they ever believe they could move all this product?

“Maybe some day the world will freeze over,” Braiden muttered. “They’ll all need sweaters then.”

He ran his hands over the sweaters, smiling in spite of himself. So plush, so comfy. He knew all these stitches, all these loops and swirls. Gods, but he missed Granny Bethilda. She would think of something. She would know what to do.

And if all else failed, she’d be there to make him a cup of hot cocoa. It didn’t taste the same when Braiden made it.

He shut the door behind him, keeping the memories locked tight. He loved this place as much as he hated it. He adored all these silly skeins and spools, spent so much of his day running his hands along all the embroidery thread, combing it out with his fingers.

He glanced at the sewing tin, at the scrap of knitting he’d picked up, and finally at the lonely tomato.

Here he was crafting more of these infernal creations when not a single sale had been made.

All this traffic coming through Weathervale and not one warrior in need of a scarf, not one rogue with a taste for fine, fluffy sweaters.

Scarves and sweaters. Far too many of them. Braiden picked up the unfinished square of yarn he’d been working on when the horned warrior had walked in. He began to frog the stitches.

Undo, unstitch, unravel. That was the nice thing about working with yarn. Nothing was permanent unless you wanted it to be. Everything could be fixed with enough time, with the right touch. He could mend this later by hand, or maybe with a careful dose of magic.

His fingers froze.

“I can fix this with magic,” Braiden breathed.

A thrill of excitement coursed through his body, the very tips of his fingers tingling with the electricity of something new, something that could be the spark of a good idea.

With a sweep of his arm he shoved the sewing tin aside, making space on the counter.

He reached for the piece of parchment demanding that rent was due and turned it over.

Blank on the back. Perfect. He selected the fluffiest, most luxurious feather in his collection of quills and dipped it in his darkest ink.

Braiden Beadle began to write.