Tansy brings a scrap of spoiled paper because Tansy believes in evidence that can get muddy.

South of the square, the Cinder writes a loop the wall-map refuses. Willows. Slow water. A heron like a question. You sketch the oxbow over Grand’s straight line until the straight line looks like the rumor it is.

Primary: feet, eyes, the smell of river-mud. Secondary: a copy of a copy that wanted neatness. Neatness is not a crime. Neatness that paves a pantry is.

Brask’s stakes, east, still stand. Holt’s loaves still wait. A page in Penn’s room is cockling from last night’s damp—the small conservation that is also the large one.