Vivienne wanted her chair back by the window.
It was an ordinary irritation, and for several days she had distrusted it.
Nerin’s chest occupied the dry space that made the chair’s better position awkward. It had remained in her own bedroom among books, clothes and stored things, shaping the way she moved through the room without requiring any wall to become a sealed shrine.
She had returned through ordinary travel and settled her other commitments. Nothing urgent demanded that the chest be opened this afternoon.
She wanted to open it anyway.
She invited Barnaby and Felix for a particular time and told them she might stop.
Before they arrived, she wiped dust from the lid and tried the key.
The lock caught.
