The afternoon light in the house never announced its own leaving. It simply thinned, the way the river sound outside the kitchen windows always shifted when the wind turned downstream.
Clara set the kettle on and measured the tea with the same quiet precision she used for everything else.
Atlas stayed close enough that their shoulders brushed each time either of them adjusted their weight. The contact no longer felt accidental. It had settled into something deliberate hours earlier, upstairs, and neither of them had bothered to put distance back between them.
Lara finished the last of her patient notes at the small table by the window, closed the ledger, and accepted the cup Clara handed her without comment.
Eli came in from the shutters with a streak of dust across one cheek and the satisfied look of someone who had driven every nail true. She washed her hands at the basin, took her own cup, and leaned against the counter across from them.
