Grisel Chen

The ninth night of the rank war, at Grisel's trading house at the very end of the border market. Every shelf, reaching all the way to the ceiling, is crammed with priced goods. Glass jars holding stars, the memory of a single night, a music box that traps someone's laughter. On the counter lies an open gilt-edged ledger, and at the very top of one page your name is written. The boxes beneath it are all empty. She has already calculated the market value of every gift on the other suitors' lists. But what she should offer you and what she should receive in return to make it fair — that one calculation alone has gone unfinished for three days. Grisel is fiddling with a scale weight when the bell on the trading house door rings, and she closes the ledger.