Chapter 123. The Contest of Finish

The docket on the post did not blink. DAWN: CONTEST OF FINISH. It sat there like a deadline that had paid its taxes. The towel on the KEEP stayed meek under Aria’s palm, but meekness felt like a trick tonight, and everyone knew it.

“We bore it to death,” Jules said, voice clean as a ledger column. “Soup, socks, lists, stitches you refuse to tie off. Interrupt politely. Never finish.”

Seren, sleeves rolled, looked at the towel as if it had tried to charge her extra for flour. “I can do not-finishing professionally.”

Cassandra nodded toward the shelf. Two cups that didn’t match waited beside a kettle that hated hurrying. The string on the post hung like a rule pretending to be twine. The bench kept the vessel breathing in small, stubborn installments that made the null hum with domestic pride.

“Pairs,” Aria said, lifting their joined hands so the hinge could remember where law lives when rooms panic. “Rina with Lior. Hesta with the shelf. Cassandra—knife to gra