Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) (21 page)

Stay in Wenwood. Find work. Make (more) friends. Put down roots?

I turned to the side and leaned back a tad, enough to see out the shop window. Cobbled road, faded awnings, trees so heavy with summer leaves their branches ought to have brushed the sidewalk. Wenwood was nothing like the city I had left behind, the city that I loved, the city that had spat me out. I’d thought Wenwood was just the place I was raised to return to when life went sour, but maybe that had been a rationalization. Maybe there was a shy piece of my heart that had loved this place all along—this place that never spat me out, and always welcomed me home.

I took a deep breath and faced Carrie. “How many pieces do you want?”