The bird was back on the wall.
Vane noticed it from the kitchen doorway, one boot still unlaced, holding a cup of something the Villa 4 staff had left in the pot overnight that had been tea at some point and was now a question. The bird sat on the same stone it had occupied for three months, brown and round-shouldered and deeply unbothered by the September morning. It turned its head once, clocked him through the window with one black eye, and went back to staring at the garden.
He had named it Kaito. Mara had named it Kaito. Then he had come back from the east having actually met Kaito, and Mara had considered the comparison for approximately two days before announcing a formal renaming on the grounds that the bird was less irritating and had fewer opinions. It was now Ryuken. The bird had not weighed in on this.
He pulled on the boot and sat down at the table.
