Chapter 114. Bench. Kettle. Witness

They crossed the square with the little procession no one had rehearsed: bench first, KEEP above it like a lantern determined not to glamorize anything, Aria and Seren between them, Jules to the well, Cassandra watching the alley corners with the sharpened patience of someone who has run out of time for speeches designed to flatter cowards. Lior and Rina walked ahead of the path with the modest diligence of cartographers at a wake.

They had almost reached the bad chain at the gate when the leader stepped out from behind a ward-stone as if a neat man might have grown there overnight. He did not look smaller, which is the trouble with men who outsource size to rooms. His four dark coats did not fan this time; two carried a stretcher draped in black, and even vanity glanced down to admit who lay under it.

He raised his palm as if requesting the hour from a clerk rather than a favor from a room he had not paid for. “Parley,” he said, with a courtesy better suited to tea. “I