The three covered biers waited in the old laundry room.
Someone had washed the floor. The long drying lines were empty, the windows shut against the evening draught. A lamp stood on the shelf where the laundry workers had once kept their meal cups. Its light reached the name cards without shining directly into the faces of those who had come to accompany them.
Runi’s mother sat beside the smallest bier with the child’s shoes on her lap.
Iven stopped at the door.
He had come because the clinical porter asked for an extra hand at the awkward turn, not because the mother had sent for him. He was not certain she would want to see him. His coat was clean now. The cloth mask he had worn in the lower air hung in the treatment store, checked and dried for whoever needed it next. None of that changed where she had first seen him.
The porter went to her and spoke quietly.
She looked toward the door. Her eyes rested on Iven for a moment, then she nodded.
He came in.
