Picked up the working list.
Looked at it.
Set it on the table.
Left without it.
---
The laundry was on the third street from the river.
She found it by the smell before she found it by the address Ken had given her — the specific combination of hot water and soap and the particular clean damp that laundry work produced. The building was old stone, lower than the surrounding ones, with windows that fogged at the edges from the steam inside.
She arrived at the sixth bell.
Early enough that the laundry had just opened, the street still quiet, the morning light at the angle that made everything look like it was just beginning.
She went in.
A woman at the counter looked up. Forty, broad-shouldered, the expression of someone who had been running a business for a long time and assessed new arrivals quickly. "Pickup or drop-off."
"Neither," Elara said. "I'm looking for Tessa."
The woman at the counter looked at her.
"She's working," she said. "Who are you."
