The idea had come to her when they’d returned to the bothy. He’d kicked off his shoes and left them in the doorway, where they’d looked so tatty and busted open that she’d wanted to bury them. She had sneaked a look at the inside heels and seen his shoe size in faded ink, then remembered he’d said he had not celebrated his birthday since his mother left Thunderstown. Her plan had formulated in that instant, then been forgotten amid the distractions of the subsequent days. Now she stood outside a cobbler’s workshop on Welcan Row, admiring the overstatement of its tradesman’s sign, which read, Bryn Cobbler: Cobbler. She pushed open the door and took a deep sniff of the polished air. Whatever in the shop wasn’t leather was fashioned from wood just as brown, and Bryn Cobbler himself was a tanned man in a buff shirt and hide apron. She’d envisaged buying Finn a pair of colourful sneakers such as she might choose for herself, but she quickly realized that was out of the question.
