It was Saturday, and the city had the particular, unhurried quality of a morning that knew it wasn't required to move quickly.
They walked side by side along the path that curved through his lawn, the grass immaculately kept, the hedges shaped with the particular precision of staff who understood that disorder, even in a garden, was not something Ray tolerated. Aurora walked at an easy pace, her voice light, the specific, comfortable tone of someone with nowhere to be and no particular agenda.
She was talking about the city — about the way it moved during the week versus the weekend, about the particular energy of financial districts on Saturdays when the buildings were full but the urgency had gone out of them, about how he had chosen exactly the right location. Away from the noise. Among the kind of people who understood the value of quiet.
Ray's responses came a beat late, a fraction shorter than they should have been. She noted it without commenting on it.
