The scullery chimney drew the woodsmoke up into the cold twilight air with a low, steady purr that sounded like a cat sleeping on a warm hearthstone.
On the pine table, the mortar scraper and the iron trowels lay where Fen had wiped them clean with an oiled rag, their steel edges catching the faint amber glow from the stove grate. Across the room, the fresh ashlar wall sealing the cellar stair had stopped weeping moisture; the grey mortar joints had dried into pale ribbons, and Prit’s red hazard chalk inscription gleamed in the dimness like three lines of dried berry juice pressed into limestone.
Tessa Dene had not moved from her low wooden chair.
Her split leather boots still rested in the puddle of cellar seepage, though the water on the flagstones was no longer rising. The grey wool blanket had slipped down to her elbows, bunched around her waist like an old sack, and her soaked woolen trouser legs were stiff with drying lime dust. Her breath came in short, jagged hitches that rattled against her collarbone every time the wind pushed through the scullery door jamb.
Up in the masonry of the western wall, Noll Vey hovered at the edge of his mortar seams, his consciousness pulled tight between shame and the irresistible habits of fifty-one years on the road.
