Chapter 115. The Future We Name

We did not wake to trumpets. We woke to rain—good rain, the kind that knows how to sink into thirsty wood and not insult the roof. Kael made tea and sang to the kettle in a voice so off-key I wanted to write it down for the child.

After we ate, we walked the bridge. Not to be seen. To see.

Hollowborn wove rope along the inner rail where small hands always go first. Dusk Spire foremen taught Veilgrove bricklayers how to curse in time with the mortar. Vesper zealots—now just men who had run out of god-shaped excuses—hauled sand and didn’t complain more than anyone else. The River Committee argued about eels. Orla’s filament hummed under the boards like a heart.

At the far end of the bridge, a new sign had been nailed to a post. Someone had carved it with an earnest knife: NO GODS ON THE BRIDGE. ONLY WORK. Someone else had added, in smaller letters: AND KISSES. Someone had then drawn a fish.

“Reasonable policy,” Kael said.

“Enforce it,” I said gravely, and