Mara brought chairs, though she carried them as if she meant to beat someone with them.
Ysabet sat where Pip could see her left hand. Edris chose the chair farther from the shelter. His attendants stayed at the gate. One had taken off a glove and was rubbing the seam across his palm; the other stood with her back to the wall, looking out into the lane.
“Tell me what you’ve observed,” Edris said.
“You first.”
A little wind lifted ash from the far corner. He watched it travel before answering.
“The vessel sold with it is old. Considerably older than the account given by the seller. The figures are associated with creatures that can alter themselves unusually quickly.”
“How quickly?”
“Under the right conditions, within a night.”
Pip turned its head. The second eye was nearly as open as the first now, though a fold kept drooping across it.
Ysabet’s stomach tightened.
“What conditions?”
“Attachment. Fear. Injury. Sometimes objects of historical importance.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
That answer she believed. It gave her no relief.
She told him about clay, the warm pouch and the new eye. She did not describe the contact with the moth. Halfway through the account she realized she was withholding it because she had not decided whether he would regard a dying moth as a good result. The thought made her stop.
He waited.
“What would your house do differently?” she asked.
“Provide food selected for its needs. A quiet room. Experienced observers. Records you cannot be expected to possess.”
“Other creatures like it?”
“Records of them.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No living creature quite like this one is in our care.”
The woman at the gate glanced toward him. He did not look around.
From the lane came the scrape of a heavy wheel. The carriage driver was moving something from beneath a tarpaulin. Ysabet saw black slats, a curved roof, two small wheels meant for smooth floors rather than marsh ground.
“Is that the quiet room?”
Edris followed her gaze. “A traveling enclosure.”
She got up.
It was large enough for Pip to turn around. That was the best she could say about it. The floor had drainage holes and a padded ridge along each side. New straps hung from the ridge, six narrow ones and two broad bands. They were soft leather, rubbed and bent by hand, without the shiny folds left by an animal’s repeated weight.
Ysabet put her left fingers beneath one.
“Made recently.”
“Yes.”
“For this creature?”
“For several possible shapes.”
“Why straps?”
“A moving carriage can be dangerous to an unfamiliar body.”
“The bands go over its back.”
“To prevent a fall.”
“Then why are there foot loops?”
The driver backed away. Edris remained beside her, close enough that she could smell clean wool and some bitter oil on his sleeve.
“There may be occasions when it cannot understand why it must remain still.”
Ysabet let the strap fall. “I know those occasions.”
“Yes. I was told about your work at the mill.”
“By whom?”
“People speak well of a difficult rescue.”
“Vennick doesn’t.”
“Vennick speaks of damage to his sluice.”
She wondered how long he had been asking questions.
Edris drew his cloak away from a patch of soot. “Your independence is admirable. It cannot supply everything this creature may need.”
She thought of the empty flannel wrapper in her drawer. He was right about the money. He was also standing beside a cage built before he had asked to buy what would go inside it.
“You could give me the records.”
“There are matters that need explanation.”
“Then explain them.”
“In a yard, while your neighbors mend a gate?”
The cooper’s brother looked up from the hinge. Edris heard himself and lowered his voice.
“I don’t mean to disparage your circumstances. Forgive me. I have seen mistakes made through missing information. Kindness alone does not protect a fragile creature.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
For a moment they stood together in the uncomfortable truth of that.
Pip had come out of the shelter. It approached by the wall, paused at a patch of sunlight and went no farther. Edris crouched, slowly, keeping both hands where it could see them.
“I have something you may recognize.”
“Don’t feed it anything.”
“It isn’t food.”
He looked up at her before reaching inside his coat. She nodded once. He took out a shallow bundle wrapped in gray felt and laid it across his knees.
At the gate the bare-handed guard straightened.
Ysabet noticed because his glove fell from his fingers. He caught it awkwardly against his leg and stared at the bundle.
Edris unfolded the felt.
Metal showed beneath it: dark, cracked at one corner, with a line of pale deposit along the broken edge. The lid from the auction box.
Pip’s jaw closed with a sound like two pebbles struck together.
Its front feet lifted, then set down in exactly the same places.
Edris turned the lid so the carving faced the creature.
The guard at the gate whispered something. The woman beside him gripped his sleeve, but she had already begun to bend her knees.