Lyra left the garden-side window open for air.
She checked the latch, the prepared marks, and the small physical supports before going downstairs to wash. The workshop loft had become hers through ordinary use: the ladder, the dry corner for her boots, the place where a careless turn of the bedcover could knock a book onto the floor.
Below, Tamsin was finishing a customer fitting. Pell had carried his school things into the spare room. The cottage still had three bedrooms, none of which had quietly become an evidence vault because Lyra needed one.
Felix and Jian remained at their agreed final-preparation work. They did not know every movement across the islands merely because they would have liked to prevent trouble.
Lyra put down the washing cloth when the little warning sounded.
Not the exposed line beside the window.
The separate condition at the inner sill.
One soft click. Then a pebble touching the bottom of its small cup.
