Seraphina runs her household like a business and her mother is dying, kept alive only by a scarce drug her husband Shattock moved heaven and earth to buy. When her assistant Jareth begs for the same medicine for his own mother, Seraphina quietly reroutes the shipment.
She tells herself there will be another batch, then another. There isn't. The company starts to fold, Jareth's loyalty turns out to have a price, and Seraphina has to sit with the arithmetic of what she traded and for whom. By the time the invoices surface, the person she has to explain it to is herself.
