The bird was on the wall.
Vane came downstairs at the sixth hour into a kitchen that already smelled of the spice blend. Mara had been up for at least forty minutes. She was at the counter with the accounts ledger open, the pen moving in its precise columns. She sat at her ninety-degree angle. She did not look up.
He put the kettle on.
She let him. This was the arrangement — she made the blend, he made the tea. It had established itself through repetition rather than agreement and required no maintenance.
He sat at the table.
Outside the window the bird was on its stone, round-shouldered and deeply unbothered, looking at the garden with the patience of something that had nowhere else to be.
"The eastern vendor," Mara said. Still not looking up.
"You went Thursday?"
