The silence held until Tessa Dene crossed the threshold of the hearth room, her calfskin boots striking the flagstones with deliberate, steady rhythm.
She did not glance up at Noll’s blue quartz niche, and she did not raise her voice in anger. She walked directly past the stone bench where Ossa Flint sat, stopped beside the iron woodbox, and lowered the bundle of split pine kindling into the bin. Stick by stick, the dry wood fell into place with sharp, resounding clatters that cut through the warm, cedar-scented quiet of the hall.
Clack. Thud. Clack.
When the last piece of pine rested against the iron lining, Tessa wiped the loose bits of grey bark and resin from her apron front with both hands. She turned around, leaned one hip against the rim of the woodbox, and looked down at the cream-colored vellum spread across the stone bench.
“It is very pretty drawing,” Tessa said, her voice calm and level, carrying the flat, practical tone of a girl who had spent five years measuring flour by the ounce and checking hearth drafts for sour ash. “The gold lines look like the filigree on the mayor’s Sunday belt. My father worked thirty years in the drift, and the only things he ever saw made of gold were the watch-chains on the company overseers.”
