Chapter 99: Where the Windows Face

The argument began over a window.

Dinraal arrived at the workshop expecting to help move a beam and found Halen standing on one side of a table, Adela on the other, and Isolde between them with an expression that suggested she had already been there too long.

“It faces the road,” Halen said.

“I can see that.”

“Then I don’t understand the difficulty.”

“I don’t want to look at the road.”

Halen glanced down at the drawing, as though the answer might be hidden beneath it.

Behind Dinraal, Gilgamesh ducked through the doorway.

“Are we building?”

“Eventually,” Isolde said.

Adela tapped the paper.

“Turn it.”

“The whole house?”

“The window.”

“That’s the north wall.”

“I know which wall it is.”

Dinraal set down his gloves.

The building on the drawing was one of six proposed cottages above the workshop quarter. Three households from the coastal camp had decided to remain in Hearth. The others were intended for people still living in temporary rooms.

Small houses. Straightforward construction. A water line close enough to connect without tearing up half the hillside.

Halen had spent two evenings arranging them.

Adela had defeated the arrangement in less than five minutes.

“What would you like to see?” Dinraal asked.

She looked at him.

“The school.”

Nessa’s classroom stood downhill beyond a strip of open ground. From the proposed cottage, it would be visible between two storehouses, provided the window faced the direction Adela wanted.

Halen looked through the workshop door.

“That won’t stay open forever.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t put a storehouse there.”

Gilgamesh made a small, appreciative noise.

Halen sat down.

Isolde hid a smile behind her hand.

Adela was not finished.

“And the door should open the other way. My sister used to have a door like that. Every time she came in with a basket, she had to back into her own kitchen.”

“You didn’t mention a basket yesterday.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Dinraal looked from the drawing to the open ground.

There were stakes outside already.

Six rectangles.

Six doors facing the same direction.

He had been pleased by them that morning.

Now he wondered how many things they had mistaken for decisions because nobody had been standing at the table to object.

“Have the others seen their plans?” he asked.

Halen rubbed his forehead.

“They’ve seen the outside.”

Isolde folded her arms.

“That may be our difficulty.”

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Halen pulled a clean sheet toward him.

“All right,” he said to Adela. “Show me the basket.”

The report from Orrin arrived while Dinraal was carrying a door frame.

He nearly struck Gilgamesh with it when his communicator sounded.

“Warn me before you become distracted,” Gilgamesh said, catching the lower corner.

Dinraal braced the frame against the wall and answered.

Eve’s voice was quiet.

“The evacuation is complete.”

He shut his eyes briefly.

“How many?”

“One million five hundred eighty-three thousand, two hundred and ten.”

Gilgamesh’s expression changed.

Dinraal repeated the number so he would remember it correctly.

“Any attack?”

“None during the evacuation.”

“And the children?”

“Reunions have begun.”

He looked toward the workshop office.

Isolde was still with Adela and Halen.

Through the open door, he could hear the scrape of a chair.

“I’m coming.”

This time, when they reached the relay room, Eve had put out chairs before anyone arrived.

Aurelius sat with his hands folded in front of him. Tiamat stood beside the window. Asha was checking the final portion of the transmission while Alexander listened through a remote connection from the landing field.

“Orrin didn’t believe them at first,” Eve said.

Dinraal settled beside Isolde.

“They thought the houses had come back?”

“Yes.”

The account was brief, but he could imagine the square well enough.

Lucas appearing.

People running.

Doors closing against another impossible arrival.

The first child brought through with Dorothy.

A blue door opening.

Isolde’s hand found his beneath the table.

“Twelve arches,” Asha said. “They opened them in the largest towns. The children helped the people understand.”

“Children who had just come back from Merrow?” Tiamat asked.

Eve nodded.

“Accompanied. People recognized them.”

Aurelius lowered his gaze.

Dinraal thought of the little girl from the coastal camp clutching her green blanket.

A familiar thing, finally in reach.

“How long?” Alexander asked.

“Eleven hours.”

The report continued through the numbers, the movement into Avalon, the people who had chosen to remain.

That part was harder to hear.

“Were they told what would happen?” Dinraal asked.

“Yes.”

“Could they get to the arches?”

“The account says they were offered the way.”

He looked toward Aurelius.

His father’s expression had become very still.

Tiamat crossed the room and sat beside him.

Dinraal imagined an old man holding the edge of a fountain while strangers asked him to leave the only place that had ever belonged to him.

He wanted to argue with the decision.

He could not find the person to argue with.

“Do we know whether they’ll return for another attempt?” Isolde asked.

“No further visit is confirmed,” Eve said.

She let that answer stand.

Then she brought up the last part of the message.

Housing.

Water.

Schools.

Millions of people sheltered beneath canvas, in spare rooms, and in underground places built for emergencies.

Alexander leaned back.

“That’s another evacuation’s worth of work.”

“Several,” Asha said.

Dinraal looked at the figures, then at Isolde.

She was thinking about the six rectangles too.

Nessa’s classroom had thirty-one chairs and thirty-seven children.

This had been true for three mornings.

Dinraal discovered it when he arrived to ask about the ground behind the school and found three children sitting on the windowsill, two sharing a chair, and Mira occupying an overturned crate with the satisfaction of someone whose seat was more interesting than everyone else’s.

The First Weapon had followed him.

His arrival solved the seating problem for exactly one child, who abandoned the windowsill to sit beside him.

It created a different problem for everyone trying to see the board.

“Down,” Dinraal murmured.

The First Weapon lowered his head.

“Further.”

He settled across the doorway.

Nessa looked at Dinraal.

“Very helpful.”

“I came to ask about the empty ground.”

“So did I.”

He glanced around the room.

She folded her arms.

“We need another covered space.”

“I can see that.”

“I’ve been saying it for a week.”

“Who did you tell?”

She handed him three folded requests.

The first bore his initials.

Dinraal stared at them.

Nessa waited.

“I approved the materials,” he said.

“Yes.”

“The delivery should have—”

“It went to the second shelter.”

He remembered.

A delayed shipment. A roof exposed to rain. A quick decision to move the timber while another load was prepared.

Then the storm.

Then the coastal camp.

The classroom had stayed crowded.

Dinraal looked down at the three requests.

“I’m sorry.”

Nessa took them back.

“I don’t need you to feel terrible. I need somewhere to put the children when it rains.”

From the crate, Mira raised her hand.

Nessa turned.

“Yes?”

“We could have lessons in the ship.”

The wooden play ship stood in the western field, made from the old machine housing they had cleaned and fitted with decks.

It possessed no roof.

Dinraal pointed that out.

Mira considered.

“We could put one on.”

“Then it would be a covered ship,” another child said.

“That’s still a ship.”

Nessa looked at Dinraal.

He recognized the expression.

Isolde used it when she was waiting for him to notice something obvious.

“What do you use the field for now?” he asked.

“Stories. Counting. Anything that benefits from moving around. The younger ones go out with an assistant when the older children need quiet.”

“And when it rains?”

Nessa spread her hands.

Thirty-seven children looked back at him.

Dinraal nodded.

“All right. I’ll bring Halen.”

“Bring the timber too.”

He accepted that without argument.

As he turned to leave, a boy near the window spoke.

“Will the new room be another school?”

“Part of this one.”

“Can it have a door that doesn’t stick?”

Nessa looked toward the existing door.

Dinraal looked at the First Weapon.

The ancient creature had wedged himself against it so thoroughly that the hinges had begun to complain.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The first housing meeting was a failure.

Everyone was polite.

That was how Isolde knew.

They had gathered the six households around two tables in the community room. Halen brought drawings. Meret brought a survey of the water line. Cleopatra brought a list of available materials and looked as though she might physically defend it if anyone made promises on her behalf.

Dinraal carried chairs.

Adela immediately began explaining her window.

The others listened.

Then Halen asked whether everyone was happy with the proposed arrangement.

Five people nodded.

One said it seemed very generous.

Isolde looked at the woman who had struggled at the coastal crossing.

Her name was Eline.

She sat near the door with her hands tucked beneath her elbows.

“You haven’t said anything,” Isolde observed.

Eline looked startled.

“It’s lovely.”

“What is?”

“The house.”

“Which part?”

The woman glanced at the drawing.

“The rooms.”

Halen opened his mouth.

Isolde touched the edge of his sleeve.

“Could we go outside?”

They walked up to the marked ground.

The stakes stood in damp soil. String marked the cottage walls. From there, the school roof was visible below them, along with the workshop chimney and the path to the new shelter.

Isolde stepped inside Eline’s rectangle.

“Where do you sleep?”

Eline hesitated.

Halen checked his drawing.

“The bedroom is—”

“Let her show us,” Isolde said.

Eline stepped over the string.

She stood in one corner.

Then moved.

Then moved again.

Dinraal waited near the proposed doorway.

Eventually, she pointed toward the uphill wall.

“There.”

Halen looked down at his plan.

“That’s where I put the store cupboard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

But she had already retreated half a step.

Isolde walked beside her.

“What do you like about that corner?”

Eline kept her eyes on the ground.

“I can see the door.”

No one answered immediately.

The workshop hammers sounded from downhill.

Halen folded his drawing.

“All right.”

Eline looked up.

“We can put the bed there,” he said. “Let’s work out the rest.”

Something in her shoulders eased.

By the time the meeting ended, the six cottages had stopped looking identical.

One household wanted a workbench near the entrance because a man repaired small instruments from home. Another needed a wider passage for his wife’s chair. Adela wanted her school window, a pantry shelf she could reach, and a place to sit outside without blocking the path.

Eline wanted two exits she could see.

Halen looked at the collection of revised drawings with the weary affection of someone watching a tidy task become worthwhile.

“This will take longer.”

Cleopatra consulted her materials list.

“Yes.”

Dinraal glanced at her.

She tapped the page.

“We can afford longer. We can’t afford rebuilding all six after people discover they hate living in them.”

Adela nodded firmly.

“Exactly.”

Halen sighed.

“Please don’t encourage her.”

Four days after the evacuation, Orrin burned.

The report reached Hearth in the afternoon.

Dinraal was helping lift the first roof beam over the school’s new covered yard.

Halen called for everyone to hold.

The beam settled into its supports.

Only when the workers had secured it did Dinraal step away to answer Eve.

He listened beside a stack of timber.

Beyond it, Mira and two other children were trying to persuade Nessa that the covered yard required a ship’s bell.

“Dinraal?”

“I’m here.”

“Twelve Hands,” Eve said. “Ilka heard them. There’s no report of a further evacuation.”

He stared at the grain in the nearest plank.

Those who had stayed.

The fountain.

The doors they would not enter.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m sorry.”

After the call, he remained where he was.

Then Isolde came around the timber stack.

She saw his face.

“What happened?”

He told her.

She listened without interrupting.

Behind them, someone laughed at the bell proposal.

The sound did not feel wrong exactly.

It belonged to another part of the same afternoon.

Dinraal struggled to hold both.

“I keep thinking they should have brought them anyway,” he said.

Isolde leaned against the timber beside him.

“I know.”

“If someone knew they were going to burn this place—”

He stopped.

She looked at him.

“If someone came into our house,” she said carefully, “and told Aurelius he had to leave, would you want them to carry him out if he refused?”

“Yes.”

The answer came too quickly.

Isolde did not argue.

Dinraal rubbed a hand over his face.

“Probably.”

“And if he understood? If he could choose, and he told you no?”

He looked toward their road.

“I don’t know.”

She took his hand.

Neither of them pretended the uncertainty was comfortable.

After a while, Halen called his name.

The second beam was ready.

Dinraal drew a breath.

“I should tell Aurelius.”

“I’ll go,” Isolde said.

He looked at her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She squeezed his fingers before releasing them.

Dinraal returned to the frame.

He put his hands beneath the beam with the other workers.

They lifted on Halen’s count.

That evening, Aurelius came to supper early.

He found Dinraal washing mud from his arms at the outside tap.

For a while, he stood beside him without speaking.

Then he said, “If you ever have to ask me to leave somewhere, ask me yourself.”

Dinraal shut off the water.

Aurelius’s face was calm.

“I can’t promise I’ll be sensible,” he added.

Dinraal gave a short, unsteady laugh.

“I’ll bring Isolde.”

“A sound precaution.”

He reached for the towel.

Dinraal caught his arm instead and pulled him into an embrace.

Aurelius held him firmly.

Through the open kitchen window, Isolde quietly set another place.

Over the next weeks, the messages from Avalon changed.

There were still threats.

There were still maps with too much empty space.

But the exchanges began to contain other things.

School counts.

Water requirements.

Descriptions of paths worn into grass by people walking where they actually wanted to go.

The name Voss appeared often.

Chancellor Voss, Eve clarified in the first briefing, and Dinraal was grateful for the distinction. There were other records bearing that surname which he had no wish to mix with these.

Avalon’s growing settlement had become a civilian undertaking, with its own planning and its own arguments.

Dinraal recognized the arguments.

He was standing in the middle of one when Asha brought the latest update to the school yard.

“No,” Meret said.

Adela planted her hands on her hips.

“The path has always gone that way.”

“The path has existed for less than a month.”

“And it has gone that way for all of it.”

The route between the cottages and the school crossed a shallow dip. During the rain, water collected there. Meret wanted to move the path uphill.

Adela wanted to keep the easier slope.

Three other residents agreed with her.

Halen wanted everyone to choose before he ordered the edging stone.

Asha approached Dinraal cautiously.

“Bad time?”

“Possibly an appropriate one.”

She handed him the update.

Across Avalon’s plain, schools had gathered around teachers, shade, water, and other children. Wren had mapped them. Roads were being planned along the paths people already used.

Dinraal looked from the report to the muddy hollow.

Meret saw him considering it.

“Do not tell me someone else has made wet ground stop being wet.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking something.”

“I was thinking we should look at why the water stays here.”

Meret narrowed her eyes.

Then she handed him a spade.

They dug three inspection holes before finding the old drainage channel.

It ran beneath a shelf of compacted soil, partly blocked by stones pushed aside during the first workshop construction. Water seeped through the blockage and spread across the low ground.

Meret crouched beside it.

“Well.”

Adela leaned on her walking stick.

“Well?”

“You can stop looking so pleased. We still need to clear it, line the crossing, and make sure it doesn’t discharge beneath your cottage.”

Adela considered that.

“My window?”

“Your window is safe.”

“Good.”

Dinraal looked toward the school.

Children were gathering beneath the new roof. Nessa had moved two tables outside. Someone had painted the first support post blue without asking anyone.

The path between them and the cottages was already visible.

He handed Asha’s tablet back.

“What else?”

“Lucas is going to help with the major works.”

Dinraal smiled slightly.

“I expect their drainage will proceed faster.”

Meret stood and knocked mud from her gloves.

“If he comes here someday, he can start by telling me where the water goes afterward.”

Dinraal did not move the whole hillside.

He moved stones.

Large ones, mostly, because there was no reason to make six workers strain over something he could lift safely with silver and a sound footing.

The smaller stones remained everyone else’s responsibility.

By the third afternoon, the channel was clear. A shallow culvert carried the path across it. Meret checked the downstream outlet twice, then made Dinraal pour water into the upper section while she watched.

“Again.”

He filled the barrel.

“Again.”

“Are we testing the drain or my patience?”

“Both appear serviceable.”

Isolde laughed from the path above them.

She had brought the children out to see where the water went.

Nessa followed with a notebook.

Within minutes, Meret had an audience.

Dinraal expected her to object.

Instead, she crouched beside the channel and began explaining how the hillside caught rain.

A boy asked why the water did not simply stay in the soil.

Mira wanted to know whether fish could live in the culvert.

Another child asked what happened if a leaf got stuck.

Meret answered all three.

Then she handed out small sticks and asked them to watch which one reached the lower marker first.

Dinraal stepped back.

Isolde came beside him.

“She’s good at this.”

“She’ll deny it.”

“Probably.”

Downhill, Sera Venn was helping an older girl read a measuring scale. At the workshop entrance, Beren had gathered four children around the dismantled bicycle.

It was still the only finished bicycle in Hearth.

At present, it was less finished than usual.

A wheel lay beside the bench.

Dinraal studied it.

“What happened?”

“You rode it,” Isolde said.

“That was weeks ago.”

“Damage can be cumulative.”

He gave her a wounded look.

She smiled and slipped her hand into his.

Across the yard, Beren turned the wheel slowly while a child watched the rim move between two fixed pieces of wood.

“There,” the child said.

Beren stopped.

“Show me.”

The lesson continued.

Dinraal looked around the yard.

He had come expecting to finish a drainage job.

Instead, there were children learning water, children learning measurements, children learning wheels, and Nessa writing down who had offered to help again.

Nobody seemed particularly troubled that most of the lessons had happened outside the classroom.

Isolde squeezed his hand.

“We should put benches along this side.”

“For the children?”

“For everyone who keeps stopping.”

He considered the space.

Then he went to find Halen.

The water reached the first cottage tap on a cold morning.

Adela turned the handle herself.

For several seconds, the pipe coughed.

She looked at Meret.

Meret folded her arms.

“Wait.”

Water struck the basin.

Adela put her hand beneath it.

Then she stood very still.

Dinraal had expected a complaint about the pressure.

Instead, she touched the edge of the basin with her other hand, as if checking that both things would remain.

Isolde waited beside the doorway.

“Would you like some time?”

Adela shook her head.

“No. There’s a kettle in that box.”

Moving day became a succession of arguments about where things belonged.

Most were friendly.

Some required chairs and tea.

Gilgamesh carried a wardrobe into the wrong cottage, discovered his mistake, and attempted to persuade both households that exchanging wardrobes would be simpler.

Cleopatra made him move it.

Rhiannon arrived with curtains and immediately began criticizing the hooks.

Tiamat helped Eline place her bed where she could see the front door.

The second exit stood a few steps beyond the kitchen, opening onto a short path that joined the lane beside the workshop.

Eline tested both catches.

Then she tested them again.

Dinraal pretended not to notice.

He was holding a shelf against the wall while Halen marked its position.

“Higher?” he asked.

Eline shook her head.

“There.”

Halen marked the fixing points.

Dinraal lowered the shelf.

For a moment, Eline seemed uncertain what to do next.

Then she crossed to the little table and unwrapped a chipped cup.

She set it down.

Moved it.

Put it back.

Isolde stood by the window with a folded cloth.

Eline looked at her.

“Can I paint this wall?”

Halen glanced up from his tools.

“What color?”

“Green.”

He nodded.

“We’ll see what pigment we have.”

Eline looked surprised.

“I can do it myself.”

“I assumed you would.”

After they left, Dinraal glanced back through the open door.

She had put the cup on the windowsill.

Sunlight caught the pale line of its damaged handle.

At Adela’s house, everyone had somehow gathered in the kitchen.

Her window faced the school.

Outside it, children were carrying benches beneath the new roof with the earnest incompetence of people who had insisted they needed no help.

Adela watched them over her tea.

“There,” she said.

Halen followed her gaze.

“Yes,” he admitted.

She looked deeply satisfied.

Then she turned toward the pantry.

“That shelf is too high.”

Halen closed his eyes.

Dinraal took the screwdriver before anyone could begin another argument.

Aurelius began reading under the school roof on the following afternoon.

He had intended to return a book to Nessa.

The children intercepted him.

Dinraal found him seated on the new bench with the book open across his knees and an audience distributed across chairs, steps, and the First Weapon.

Isolde stood near the doorway, listening.

“What is it?” Dinraal whispered.

“A story about a fisherman who makes an unfortunate agreement.”

“How unfortunate?”

“He’s already lost his boat.”

“Seems careless.”

“He wanted a larger one.”

On the bench, Aurelius turned a page.

A child interrupted.

“That isn’t how my grandmother told it.”

Aurelius lowered the book.

“How did she tell it?”

The child glanced at Nessa.

Nessa nodded.

So the story changed.

The fisherman became a woman who kept goats. The boat became a bell that could call rain. Half the children objected because there had been no goats in the first version.

Aurelius listened to every correction.

By the time they finished, nobody could agree what had happened, but everyone wanted another story.

Dinraal sat beside Isolde.

Their shoulders touched.

“You remember him reading like that?” she asked.

“Not enough.”

She looked at him.

He watched Aurelius hold the book so a younger child could see the picture.

“There was always something happening.”

“There still is.”

“Yes.”

The answer came more easily than he expected.

Across the yard, the workshop door opened. Aramaeis came out carrying a small box of wooden pieces. He paused when he saw the gathering, then sat at the far end of the bench.

Mira immediately inspected the box.

Within minutes, the fisherman’s unfortunate boat was being built on the ground.

It had three towers and no obvious means of floating.

Aurelius regarded it.

“I see why he wanted another.”

The children laughed.

Dinraal felt something settle in his chest.

Isolde leaned against him.

After the story, Nessa asked whether Aurelius would come again.

He looked at the children.

Then at the book.

“Tomorrow?”

“If you like.”

He nodded.

On the way home, Dinraal carried the box of wooden pieces while Aurelius walked beside him.

“You don’t have to do every afternoon,” Dinraal said.

“I know.”

“If you get tired—”

“I’ll sit down.”

“You’re already sitting down.”

“A sensible arrangement.”

Dinraal glanced at him.

Aurelius smiled.

Then his expression softened.

“I like having somewhere I’m expected.”

Dinraal stopped walking.

His father turned.

“You’re expected at ours.”

“I know that too.”

He touched Dinraal’s arm.

“This is different.”

Dinraal thought of the children watching for him beneath the roof.

“Yes,” he said.

Aurelius resumed walking.

After a few steps, he added, “You could come tomorrow.”

“I was there today.”

“You arrived halfway through. You missed the boat.”

“Apparently so did the fisherman.”

Aurelius laughed all the way to the corner.

The name arrived at the end of a long report.

Thera.

Eve said it aloud once, then played the pronunciation that had accompanied it.

Asha tried it.

Then Julius.

Dinraal remained beside the window while the last images appeared.

Water points.

New roads across the plain.

The beginnings of homes built by people who had arrived with almost nothing.

Some had steep roofs. Some sat low against the ground. Some looked like compromises made between two people who loved different places and had decided to build together anyway.

Isolde studied one for a long time.

“They chose the name?”

“The children began using it,” Eve said. “The settlement adopted it.”

Asha scrolled farther.

“There’s a bicycle workshop.”

Enna, who had come to check a technical attachment, looked up.

“A proper one?”

“A shed, apparently.”

“Good enough.”

The name above its door was Teodor’s.

Dinraal read it, then glanced toward the small section explaining who Teodor had been to Voss.

He did not say anything.

Enna had already found the mention of the releases.

“At least someone is remembering the instructions.”

Julius smiled.

“Would you like to send a note?”

“Yes.”

“Encouraging?”

Enna looked offended.

“Useful.”

They let her write it.

Dinraal watched the images once more.

Lucas had done the work Hearth could not hope to match: the deep passages, the major roads, the beginnings of underground shelters on a scale that made their own construction seem very small.

But then the others had taken over.

People carrying timber.

People arguing beside unfinished walls.

A child standing where a window would be.

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

She was smiling.

“What?”

“Adela would have opinions.”

“She has opinions about our six houses.”

“Imagine how happy she’d be with a city.”

Eve laughed softly.

They sent a few images back.

The covered school yard.

The repaired drainage crossing.

The cottages with six different arrangements of windows.

Aurelius on his bench, halfway through another story, while the First Weapon occupied far too much of the foreground.

Dinraal added no grand explanation.

Just a note beneath the last picture.

We’ve been making room too.

Johanna saw them together near the end of the week.

This time, Dinraal did not pretend they had come about something else.

The physician looked from him to Isolde, then closed the folder on her desk.

“Have a seat.”

They did.

Isolde reached for his hand before either spoke.

“We’ve talked,” she said.

Johanna nodded.

“And?”

Dinraal looked at his wife.

For once, the answer did not disappear when someone asked him for it.

“We’d like to try.”

The room became very quiet.

Not tense.

Simply attentive.

Johanna’s expression softened.

“All right.”

Dinraal had expected the words to make everything feel different.

Instead, he remained himself.

His hand was warm around Isolde’s.

Someone in the corridor dropped a metal tray and apologized loudly.

Outside the window, the workshop chimney sent a thin line of smoke into the cold air.

Johanna asked practical questions.

They answered what they could.

Where they were uncertain, she wrote it down.

There were things she could monitor and things she would need help understanding. The silver remained part of that uncertainty. They had already discussed it, but she went through the relevant questions again without pretending another family’s experience settled theirs.

Dinraal listened.

Isolde asked about work.

Then fatigue.

Then whether Johanna intended to tell anyone before they did.

“No.”

“Even Rhiannon?”

“Especially Rhiannon.”

Dinraal laughed.

Johanna pointed at him.

“That doesn’t mean you get to become impossible in private.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

Isolde looked at him.

He reconsidered.

“I’ll make an effort.”

“Better.”

When they left, the afternoon had turned bright.

For several steps, neither spoke.

Then Isolde stopped beside the low wall outside the clinic.

Dinraal turned toward her.

She was smiling in a way he had not seen before.

“What?”

“Nothing has happened yet.”

“I know.”

“I’m still smiling.”

“So am I.”

She laughed, then pulled him close by the front of his coat and kissed him.

A passerby made a discreet effort to become interested in the opposite side of the road.

Dinraal hardly noticed.

When they drew apart, Isolde rested her forehead against his.

“We should go home.”

“Yes.”

“And eat something.”

“Johanna mentioned that.”

“She was looking at you.”

“She often does.”

They walked back slowly.

At the school, Aurelius had acquired a second book and an audience that now included Adela, two workshop apprentices, and Teren, who sat near the open edge with his hands wrapped around a cup.

The First Weapon lifted his head as they passed.

Dinraal raised a hand.

Aurelius smiled at them, then returned to the page.

They did not interrupt.

At home, Isolde opened the kitchen window.

Cold air moved through the room.

Dinraal put water on for tea and took two cups from the shelf.

He had begun reaching for a third before he remembered Aurelius was still at the school.

Isolde saw.

“He’ll come later.”

“I know.”

She crossed to the desk and opened her notebook.

For a while, she wrote.

Dinraal brought her tea.

“What are you putting down?”

She turned the notebook toward him.

Today we decided.

He read the three words.

Then he looked at the folded house drawing beside them.

“Do we change the plan?”

“Not yet.”

He nodded.

Isolde took his hand.

“But we can leave it out.”

So they did.

When Aurelius arrived an hour later, he found the kitchen warm, supper nearly ready, and a place set for him at the table.

He hung his coat beside the door.

“Good day?”

Dinraal looked at Isolde.

She smiled over the pot she was stirring.

“Yes,” he said.

Aurelius regarded them both for a moment.

Then he smiled too.

“Good.”

Outside, lights appeared one by one in the cottages above the workshop.

Adela’s window shone toward the school.

And in the little house farther down the road, Dinraal carried the last bowl to the table and sat beside his wife.