The bottle was almost gone.
Nobody had noticed it happen. The lamp on the windowsill had burned lower without anyone getting up to adjust it. Outside, the garden was dark. The bird had left the wall at some point in the last hour.
Mara had gone to bed at the tenth hour. She had set her bowl in the basin, said goodnight to the room, and her footsteps on the stairs had been the last sound from that direction. The three of them had stayed at the table without discussing it.
Valerica refilled Isole's glass. Isole watched the pour with the attention she gave things that didn't require her attention, which meant she was thinking about something else.
"My mother asked about the collar," Isole said. "The second-year modification."
"What about it?" Vane said.
"She said it reads as merchant class in the Silver Wood's formal textile taxonomy." A pause. "She had prepared three alternatives."
"Did you wear them?" Valerica said.
"No."
