Tal had put a second stool in the quiet seat.
Iven noticed it before the new labels, the cleaned stair or the lamp bracket Mira had finally persuaded someone to fix at a sensible height. The first stool stood in the central hollow. The second waited beside it, where a learner could listen without pressing an ear against the wrong pipe.
“Company?” Iven asked.
“Teaching,” Tal said. “If I die knowing one useful thing, I’d rather it didn’t have to be found again under a salt shed.”
He sat with care, easing his stiff knee into place. Iven took the second stool.
Above them, the Sill was stitching itself dry after the storm. The damaged outer covers were being repaired. Good freight had begun moving from the lower station after the road crew’s inspection. The replacement twelve tons had left the secured depot under its own paid carrier mark. The lost grain remained in the account. None of those facts required the room beneath the shed to keep being forgotten.
Orla’s latest copy lay in a waxed sleeve beside the stair.
Tal read the instruction about keeping the approach closed until the answer. Then he pointed to the ninth ceramic mouth, high on the eastern side.
