Hours go into the meadow like water into wool.

You find the ferry by stubbornness and a rope on the skyline. You are soaked, lighter of time, heavier of sense. Bram raises both eyebrows, which is lecture enough.

The feast is thinner. You may still walk. You may eat Hawte’s bread and taste late. Mixed: alive, delayed, the low road uninstalled from your head.

Aelric does not say the list was right. The list sits, damp, right anyway.

You laugh once, which is a leak of pride, then save your breath for hauling. Late is a country with a ferry in it. Hawte’s bread, later, will taste of meadow-hours. You will not take the green ribbon again unless the Lynne is a pebble-path, which you will test with a stick.

THE END

What you learned: flood meadows are the river’s spare room. A green summer track can be a current in spring; itineraries warn because someone already paid the hours.