---
"Did you carefully bring you what you wanted," Gael asked.
"It brought me a name," John said. "And a man to put it on."
"Then it was a better trip than most," Gael said, and did not ask more because John's face said his mouth was tired and he didn't want to share anything, right now.
They ate bread thick with butter and a wedge of cheese that had decided to be generous. Fizz sprinkled a suspicious pinch of cardamom sugar on his slice and went wide eyed with gratitude. "This is what clouds taste like when they retire," he said.
After, John pulled a plank across a corner of the main room and chalked a circle that had waited in his head through breakfast, lunch, and a boy's thin voice. It was not a big array. It was a small one, a practice ring for precision: a discipline circle for breath and little pulses. He marked the anchor points and drew the lines between with a hand that did not shake because it had learned when not to.
