"I want to build a sewer system."
Brynn's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. Seris set down her wine glass, which at breakfast was filled with juice, technically, though Katarina had her suspicions.
"A what?" Brynn said.
"A sewage and water purification network for Vellasera. Underground pipes, gravity-fed drainage, formation-powered water filtration, and public bathhouses connected to a clean supply."
Katarina laid the proposal on the breakfast table between the toast and the fruit bowl. Seventeen pages of diagrams, cost projections, and phased rollout plans, arranged in order (because she wasn't an animal).
Brynn looked at the first page, then the second, then back at the first. Katarina knew that face. It was the one Brynn wore when she needed a running start to catch up to whatever Katarina had just said.
"So... fancy toilets. For the whole town?"
"It's significantly more than fancy toilets, Mother."
"But there are toilets."
"... There are toilets."
