The second loaf was sweeter than the first, though no one had added anything to it.
Kael chewed slow, as if he could hear the basin between each bite. The fire beside the kiln was little more than a bed of coals, but its heat clung to the air like an agreement not yet written down.
The shelters leaned into each other like they'd been made by wind instead of hands. Shadows pooled beneath them, not as a warning but as a place the day could rest.
Across the camp, Tey was laying stones again. She worked in pairs — one stone for the path, one for the wall that wasn't quite a wall.
"Not a fence," she'd told Maro earlier. "Just a way of saying where we begin."
The boy sat cross-legged near her, eyes closed, one palm on the ground. "The middle's moving," he said when Kael passed.
"What does that mean?" Kael asked.
"That it's learning us," the boy replied, opening his eyes. "Or deciding if it wants to."
