While the adults were arguing over valve tolerances, twelve-year-old Tavi had climbed onto a wooden stool beside Sister Merrow’s hearth. He held a horsehair brush and a pot of blue dark oak-ink. On the whitewashed timber duty board where the daily watch shifts were chalked, the boy carefully painted three small chairs to mark the arrival of the foreign specialists.
The first chair, representing Ada, was straight, neat, and perfectly plumb. The third chair, representing Imran, was narrow and covered in tiny, careful tally dots. But the middle chair—representing Jo Saye—had slipped on the wet wood. Its back leaned fifteen degrees to the left like a three-legged stool in a tavern brawl.
Tavi gasped in horror, reaching for a wet cloth to wipe the crooked drawing away. ‘Oh no! Uncle Eren, I ruined Jo’s chair!’
Jo Saye walked across the room, caught the boy’s wrist with a gentle, firm hand. Then he took the brush from his fingers. She looked at the crooked chair, tilted her head. Then she let out a rich, booming laugh that warmed the whole washroom.
‘Don’t you dare touch that ink, lad,’ Jo smiled, ruffling his curly hair. ‘That middle chair is the only one on the whole board with any bloody personality! It looks like an honest tradesman sitting down after ten hours of hauling pipe. Leave it right there. That’s my chair, Tavi. If anyone tries to straighten it, tell them Jo Saye will take a pipe wrench to their shins.’
