Chapter 14: Sharing a Table

The second day began with dust.

I did not realize it until I left the blue door. Danika tucked two cloth-wrapped loaves into my inner pocket, and after I answered, "I’ll be back," to her "Take care," I stepped out into the back alley, where powder lay scattered as always.

I only noticed when the theater wall came into view. Something pale was rising over the round roof beyond the wall, spreading sideways though there was no wind.

When I pushed open the back door, dust thicker than yesterday hung at the end of the corridor. Yesterday had been the day they lowered the ropes, and all I heard was the sound of them hitting the floor. Today, something was being scraped from the ceiling.

It was the day they hung the new ropes.

Two workers came walking out from deeper in the corridor. They were two of the four men who had set up the supports yesterday, each carrying a thick coil of rope over one shoulder. The ropes smelled of fresh hemp.

I pressed myself to the wall to let them pass. They merely dipped their heads as they went by, and dust rose once more in their wake before settling.

The paper on the wall remained as it was, with no names added after the three at the bottom. As I passed, I saw that the charcoal of the first name had smudged a little more than yesterday.

Reading it up close, two of the names were unfamiliar, and one was a name I knew. The familiar name was the most crooked of the three.

When I opened the props room door, the old man was already there. Three boxes had been set beside his chair, and he stood holding a rag that had already turned gray.

"You’re here? Shut the door. Quickly."

Even after I closed it, dust came in. Dust seeped through the crack beneath the door and drifted slowly through the lamplight. The old man tried to chase the floating dust away with his rag, then gave up.

"No use chasing it. Today, it settles as fast as you wipe."

"Where are the rope men?"

"Stuck to the stage. The theater director came by once this morning too, stared up at the ceiling, then left."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. Just looked and left."

"Are they hanging all the ropes?"

"They said they’d hang half today. The other half tomorrow, then raise the machinery the day after. It’ll be like this for three days."

The old man was covering twenty goblets on the shelf with cloth. There was only one clean cloth in the props room, so it covered only half of them. The other half remained exposed to the dust.

"Wipe the goblets tomorrow. Today, just do the candlesticks. You can wipe dust off candlesticks."

I sat down. The old man opened one box for me. Inside were eleven candlesticks he had taken down from the shelf that morning, each resting on its base beneath a thin layer of dust.

I began wiping them. Whenever I cleaned one and put it back on the shelf, dust immediately settled on it again. By the time I cleaned the second, the first had turned gray again.

From the stage came one long clang of metal striking metal, then two short ones, followed by the sound of several people pulling together. Every time it happened, the ceiling trembled and the lamp flame shook.

When the ceiling gave an especially loud shudder, one candlestick at the edge of the shelf tipped over. The old man reached out with the rag still in his hand and caught it. Instead of putting it back, he placed it in the box.

"Take them all down. They can’t stay on the shelves today."

All eleven candlesticks went back into the box. Cleaned and uncleaned alike went in together, and the old man closed the lid and laid the rag on top.

My hand reached the box before the old man could bend down to put it on the floor. Seeing it, he clicked his tongue once.

"You’re lifting boxes with that leg?"

"I can push them while sitting."

Still seated, I pushed the box against the wall. The old man did not stop me. Instead, he set the next box by my feet.

I took out the inventory sheet, then put it back down on the shelf.

Under the wavering light, the numbers looked doubled. There was no use writing down doubled numbers when I would only have to write them again tomorrow, and the old man said nothing as he looked at the sheet.

"Today isn’t a day for counting. It’s a day for wiping."

"Yes."

"Though wiping is no use either."

The old man said that and laughed. It was less a laugh than a single breath escaping through his nose, but I had only seen him do it twice since coming to the troupe.

A sound came from the corridor.

It was different from the metal sounds, coming from the rehearsal room. First came a piano, then a voice rose over it—a voice that broke through the noise from the stage and reached the props room.

It was a high voice. The voice that had once risen above nine others and fallen again on performance day was alone today, and alone, it climbed even higher.

The old man paused his wiping and looked up at the ceiling. He knew the sound was not coming from there, but his eyes turned that way anyway, and when they lowered, they did not look at me.

"A demonstration piece."

"That is?"

"If that sort of sound comes out there, it is. Looks like they left the rehearsal room door open."

The voice rose once, then broke off and started again from the beginning, climbing to the same point. The second time lasted a little longer than the first.

The third time, it reached the end and came back down. Then only the piano remained, and when that too stopped, the metal sounds from the stage came in at once.

So writing down her name had been real, I thought. The hand that had borrowed charcoal yesterday came back to mind.

I had never doubted it. Still, hearing the sound made the name written on the wall feel real only then.

I finished wiping the candlesticks. While I did, the voice repeated its rise and fall, but I did not count how many times.

Even when lunchtime came, the door did not open.

There was no rattle of a tin can, no footsteps. Yesterday, the door had opened before I could even take out my bread, but today the only sound was the old man rising from his box and shaking out the rag.

The sounds from the rehearsal room did not stop at noon. During them, the two workers passed through the corridor once more, this time carrying a ladder on their shoulders.

I remembered the face that had asked from beyond the threshold yesterday evening, Is that person coming again? It had been a face that asked without stepping even one foot inside. Today, that one foot seemed to have stretched all the way to the end of the corridor.

I tore one loaf in half and offered it to the old man. He took it with dust-covered hands and ate it, and I ate mine the same way. The bread tasted of dust, but the old man said nothing about it.

I saved half the second loaf. Whether I had saved it to give someone if they came, or simply saved it, I could not say for sure. I wrapped the remaining half in the cloth again.

"She said the front row would go first. Vodianitsa did, yesterday."

"Doesn’t seem to be today."

The old man said only that and chewed his bread. The look on his face when he turned once toward the rehearsal room was not a pleasant one.

"Singing with the door open in all that dust will ruin someone’s throat. Somebody ought to close it."

"Should I go say something?"

"How would someone from the props room close the rehearsal room door? Leave it."

Not saying more was like the old man, and I did not pry any further. Who went first and who went later in the rehearsal room where the front row went first was not something people in the props room could know.

In the afternoon, the sounds of metal ceased for a while. The rehearsal room sounds filled the gap, lingering low for a long time before rising.

While those sounds continued, the old man did not wipe anything. He did not say why, and when the metal sounds began again, he picked up the rag.

Then the noise grew louder.

Perhaps they had finished scraping things from the ceiling, because now they were hauling something heavy upward. Every time the sound came, the twenty goblets on the shelf struck one another. The old man laid them down one by one.

Dust settled over the goblets lying down.

The old man hung his rag on a nail in the wall. After looking once at the rag, no longer gray but nearly black, he looked at me.

"Go home early today."

"But I haven’t even wiped half of them."

"It’ll settle again tomorrow. Wiping now is just making room for dust."

The old man picked up my inventory sheet from beside the bundle on the shelf, put it in the box, and closed the lid. It was a hand trying to keep dust from settling on the sheet, but he left the bundle untouched.

"Your visitor’s cookies will be eating dust too."

"I ate half yesterday."

"Eat the rest tomorrow. There’s no place to breathe here today, so go."

I held out the half loaf wrapped in cloth. The old man took it, looked at it once, and put it into his own pocket. He did not ask whose portion it had been.

"They said they’re only hanging half tomorrow. It should be better than today, right?"

"Even if they hang only half, there won’t be half the dust. Go."

"Yes. See you tomorrow."

"Take care."

I got up, leaning on my cane.

When I opened the door, the dust in the corridor was thicker than in the props room, and the rehearsal room was still making noise. Leaving that sound behind me, I walked toward the back door, slowing a little before the paper on the wall.

There were still three names, just as there had been that morning, and the smudged charcoal was unchanged. I did not know whether there would be four tomorrow, or still three.

Holding the railing, I came down the three back steps. As I descended, the singing inside rose once more and then cut off.

The sun was still high, making the sunlight on the powder whiter than it was in the evening, but the wind was as cold as yesterday. I had never left early before, so the back alley at this hour felt unfamiliar.

To the left lay the back alley, and at its end was the blue door.

I did not go left.

There was only one reason. My left arm, which had felt warm as I came down the back alley yesterday evening, had remained exactly as it was through the night, the morning, and a day of dust, with nowhere for me to put it.

If I went through the blue door holding that arm, Danika would have dinner laid out. Today, I was not sure whether I could sit down before that dinner as I did on any other day.

So I went right.

The right-hand road followed the theater wall around to the street by the front entrance. On performance days, people lined up there to buy tickets. On days without performances, people unrelated to the theater passed through. Patches of melted snow stained the street black here and there.

There were many people, and though no one had shed their coat in the afternoon of the thaw, everyone walked more slowly than they had in winter. Shallow meltwater had pooled over the stone pavement in front of the shops.

I passed a bakery, then a shop with new gloves and wool hats strung up in rows outside. No one looked at me as I passed, and the sound of my cane disappeared into the sounds of the street.

The spot beside the front entrance where lines formed on performance days stood empty. It was where a person in a wool hat had once paced, unable even to get into line. As I passed it, the cup of tea from that day crossed my mind briefly and passed on.

There was a teahouse on that street.

It was a low little shop four stone buildings from the theater’s front entrance. I had seen its steamed-up windows from afar while standing on the front steps on performance days, but I had never gone inside.

I had never considered entering. What business did someone from the props room have sitting in a teahouse? That thought had never changed.

I stopped in front of the door.

Then something came back to me. It was the habit of sitting in a café outside my company on days when I did not want to go straight home after work. It was the first time that habit had occurred to me since coming to this land.

Even then, I had never sat down because I wanted coffee. There was nobody at home, and I disliked entering a place with no one there right away, so I would sit amid other people’s sounds for about an hour before going back.

Back then, I had thought other people’s sounds were enough. Even when sitting alone, I did not realize I was alone. Once that hour ended, I went home to nobody.

Now there was someone at home. Yet I could not go straight inside, just as I had not been able to then. I took hold of the door handle.

When I pushed the door open, the air inside pushed out first. It was warm, smelling of a stove and tea.

There were seven tables and sixteen people in the narrow shop. Steam rose from a kettle atop an iron stove in the back. The iron stove and steam were like those inside the theater’s front entrance, but the cups here were not overturned. They were held in people’s hands.

The owner saw me first. She looked at my cane, then at my face, then pointed toward the window with her chin.

"There’s one free by the window."

There was an empty seat by the window.

I stood by the door for a moment. I wondered if someone might stand up as I passed between all those people with my cane, but no one did.

Several people looked at me as I made my way to the table for two, then saw the cane and looked away. They were looks found everywhere, so I did not mind them.

I sat down. I leaned my cane against the chair opposite me.

Four tea names were written in Teyvat script on the board hanging on the wall, and it took me time to read them. The first and second were long, the third had two letters, and the fourth was a little longer than the third.

The owner came over. She was a middle-aged woman in an apron, carrying two empty cups on a tray.

"What will you have?"

"Um, the third one."

"Honey or no honey?"

"...Please add it."

The owner nodded and left. I had asked her to add it because I did not know what difference it made, but that only made me more curious. Still, she was already too far away to ask.

The window was fogged over. I wiped it with my palm and saw the street, with half the stone pillars of the theater entrance visible across the way.

At the next table, two men argued over some bargain, while three women farther away laughed. I could not make out what they said. The unintelligible sounds of strangers mixed with the sound of the stove and filled the shop.

Sitting amid those sounds felt like the café outside my company. The only differences were what was in the cup and the traces of snow outside the window.

A palm-sized cup of reddish-brown tea arrived, steaming. One sip brought bitterness followed by sweetness, and I supposed that sweetness was the honey.

It was the first time in this land that I had bought something for myself and sat down with it.

On Earth, buying a cup of coffee on my way home from work had never meant anything to me. It had never made me feel like it was a first. Here, it had taken four months to have that one cup.

The candy tin belonged to Vodianitsa, and the scarf around my neck belonged to Danika. The only thing I could call mine was the cane leaning against the chair across from me, and even that had been issued by the hospital.

When I held the cup in both hands, my hands grew warm. Once they did, my left arm came back to mind. I still did not know where to put it.

I had forgotten to drink. Holding the cup as it cooled, I looked out the window, then took another sip. It tasted less sweet than before.

The door opened and closed. Another customer must have entered, because the shop grew a little more crowded.

"Can I sit here?"

I looked up.

A tall woman stood beside the table. Her hair was not merely long; it was golden and fell past her waist and farther still. The white veil she wore was blue on the inside, and above it rested a golden crown ornament.

Her eyes were different colors. The left was gold, and the right a pale blue.

She stood in the teahouse dressed like that.

No one was looking at her. Not one of the sixteen people had raised their head, and even the owner passed beside her with a tray in hand without giving her so much as a glance.

She must be a theater person who had come out still wearing her stage costume, I thought. With the theater’s front entrance across the street, only theater people would come out dressed like that. That must have been why nobody stared.

Her face looked familiar.

I wondered if I had seen her onstage, but none of the people who had stood onstage on performance day had a face like hers.

"Please, sit. I’ll move my cane."

I took the cane from the opposite chair and leaned it against the table leg on my side. The woman stood without a word while I did so, then only pulled out the chair once the cane was moved.

She wore no gloves. Her pale, long hand gripped the chair back, and even her fingertips were white, suiting her appearance.

When she tilted her head slightly, the blue inside her veil showed. It was the same blue as the evening sky behind the painted castle hanging from the theater ceiling, the castle whose every window had glowed yellow.

She sat down slowly.

As she leaned back and slowly crossed her legs, her veil swayed once, and her long golden hair spilled over the chair back. Until that slow motion had completely ended, I searched for somewhere to look before finally lowering my eyes to my teacup.

"Haa, it’s crowded."

The woman spoke. Her voice was slow and soft, and her expression looked bothered, but for someone with that expression, she had not hesitated at all in choosing a seat.

The owner came over, and without looking remotely surprised by the woman, asked what she wanted—the same question she had asked me.

"The same."

The woman pointed at my cup with her chin. The owner did not ask whether she wanted honey and left.

In the middle of the table sat a small bottle with dried flowers that had withered long ago. A faint gold shimmered over their dry stems.

It was light. Only beneath that light did the edges of the withered petals briefly take on the color of life.

I thought sunlight entering through the window must have pooled there. I had not noticed it when I came in because I had only been looking outside, and with the sun lowering, the light could have reached the table that low.

The woman’s tea arrived. She looked at the cup but did not touch it.

"Some hot water in this cup, please."

She said it to the owner while pointing at my cup with her chin. The owner brought the kettle and poured water into my tea, which had been growing cold.

"Thank you."

"You were drinking it cold."

Her brief answer came a little faster than before. Not fast enough to call it fast. Just a slow person speaking a little less slowly.

It was quiet.

The shop was full of the sounds of sixteen people, but this table alone was quiet. I still was not very good at enduring quiet places.

"I work at the theater across the street."

I spoke first.

"There’s a place called the props room, where they keep the things that go onstage. I work there. The construction made the dust bad today, so I left early."

"I see."

"They took down all the ropes that hold the equipment from the ceiling and are hanging new ones. They say it’ll be dusty for three days."

"So?"

"...So I came here. It’s my first time in this shop."

"Have you seen a theater performance?"

"From beside the stage. I only see half of it because I watch while working."

"Only half?"

"Yes. I hear the other half."

"Who told you to leave early?"

"The person I work with. He’s older, and he said there was no use wiping today."

"I see. Someone who knows what is useless."

"Yes. He knows everything."

"Do you hate dust that much?"

"It’s not that I hate it. The lamp shakes, so the numbers look doubled."

"They look doubled?"

"Yes. Then there’s no use counting them."

For the first time, the woman narrowed her eyes slightly. I could not tell whether she was smiling or not, but they soon returned to normal.

She propped her chin on her hand. The eyes looking at me from behind it seemed bothered, yet they never once moved elsewhere.

I kept talking. I told her there were two people in the props room, that one of them was the old man, and that he had sent me home early because wiping was useless today. As I spoke, she answered, "I see," and, "Mm-hm."

Her responses were short. But she did not miss a single place that needed one. Every time I drew breath, one of those short responses came in exactly where it belonged.

"Your sleeves are gray."

"Pardon?"

"You have dust up to your elbows."

I looked down. My coat sleeves were gray up to my elbows. When I brushed them with my hand, dust fell onto the table and settled in a thin layer beside the teacup.

"I’m sorry for making such a mess."

"You said it would be dusty for three days, and that’s why you left early."

The woman gave my own words back to me. She said it with that bothered expression, but she had remembered even the number three.

"You said it was your first time, right?"

"Pardon?"

"Your first time in this shop. Then why that tea?"

She pointed to my cup with her chin. Her own cup remained untouched.

"Because the name was the shortest."

"Shortest?"

"I’m slow at reading. I picked the shortest one of the four."

The woman’s hand fell from her chin.

Once her lowered hand came to rest on the table, her next words came a little faster than before. I only realized they had sped up after she finished speaking.

"You’re learning to read. Who teaches you?"

"I learned on the forest road. There was someone who taught me."

"Do they still teach you?"

"Now I read by myself. I’m slow, though."

"But you read, even slowly."

"Yes. Even slowly."

"Being slow isn’t a bad thing."

She said that, then casually asked the next question.

"Where do you live?"

"At the end of the back alley. It’s the house with the blue door."

"The house with the blue door."

She repeated it once. She did not ask further, but only afterward did I close the mouth that had carelessly told her about the blue door.

I remembered Vodianitsa asking yesterday whether I answered every question I was asked. But what I had said was already said.

"How did you come to work at the theater?"

"There was someone who brought me there. The person from the forest road."

"Are they a theater person too?"

"Yes. She sings in the chorus and stands in the front row."

"She stands in the front row."

"Yes. Not for long, though."

"That person has done a lot for you."

"Yes. A lot."

"I see."

After saying that, the woman fell silent for a moment. Her speech, which had sped up, slowed again. Still slow, she pushed the honey bowl toward me.

It was a small bowl the owner had left at the edge of the table, and I had not even noticed it was there. The woman pushed it all the way beside my cup, then withdrew her hand.

"Add more. That tea is bitter."

"Thank you."

At those words, the woman’s eyes blinked once.

Then she propped her chin up again, this time with the other hand. Her face turned slightly toward the window.

"What do you do in the props room?"

"I count things. Eleven candlesticks, twenty goblets, five fake flowers, and three crowns. I count them, wipe them, and write them down."

"Who wears the crowns?"

"The people who stand in front. One of the three has its gold paint worn off, so it’s for the back row."

"There are crowns for the back row too."

"Yes. You can’t see it from the back row."

"Every day?"

"Every day. The numbers are always the same when I count them, but if I do not count them, I do not know whether they are the same."

"Does it make you uneasy not to count?"

"...A little."

"Mm-hm."

The woman accepted that word, little, and looked like she would not pry further.

"I suppose so."

She turned from the window to look at me. Half the annoyance remained in her eyes, and the other half was something else.

"There are five fake flowers?"

"Yes. They go onstage, so there are no real ones. Real flowers wither quickly."

"That’s true."

After responding, she continued.

"So there is someone who counts the same numbers every day."

"That’s what work in the props room is like."

"Mm-hm. That’s what it is like."

She took my words and spoke them once more herself, but she was not mocking me.

"What about you? What kind of work do you do?"

I asked. Only afterward did I wonder if I had just asked a theater person whether she was a theater person, but the woman looked as though she considered it for a moment.

"I work with flowers."

"Flowers?"

"Mm-hm. I grow them, make them. That sort of work."

As she said it, the woman did not look at the dried flowers in the middle of the table. She looked at me instead, so I did not look at the flowers either.

"It would be nice if there were someone like you at the theater. All the fake flowers are worn out."

"I do not touch fakes."

"Ah, I suppose not."

"Mm-hm. Only living things."

"What’s your name? I’m Kim Sang-hyeon."

"Rhinedottir."

It was a long, unfamiliar name, but for an unfamiliar name, it felt as though I had heard it somewhere. It was the same feeling as her familiar face, and I wondered if I had seen and heard her onstage.

"Rhinedottir."

"Mm-hm."

"I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere. Are you with the theater, by any chance?"

"Haa, who knows."

The woman stopped there. She neither denied it nor confirmed it, merely reaching for the honey bowl and stirring the spoon once.

"You have charcoal on your hands."

"I write things down for work. It doesn’t come off easily."

"Mm-hm. Some things do not come off."

After saying that, she took her eyes off my hands.

Her eyes lowered. They came to rest on the cane leaning against the table leg.

The cloth around its handle had turned gray with dust. The woman looked at that grayness for a long time. The sounds in the shop remained unchanged, but this table alone grew quieter.

The woman uncrossed her legs. Soundlessly, she set both feet neatly on the floor, and her back moved slightly forward from where it had rested against the chair.

"That leg of yours."

"Yes. It was injured."

"Mm-hm. It has been a while, hasn’t it?"

"Nearly three months."

"If someone could heal that leg all at once, would you have them do it?"

I laughed. The laugh came out first, and only afterward did I consider whether it was something to laugh about.

"That would be nice, if someone like that existed."

The woman did not laugh.

Her face no longer looked bothered. She did not prop up her chin or look out the window, but simply looked at me and waited. It was the face of someone who needed to hear the answer before the matter could end.

My laughter faded.

Before eyes that would not let me take it as a joke, what I had just said felt too light. I could not take it back, so I added more.

"This happened because my body moved first that day."

I spoke while looking at my teacup.

"A painted backdrop suspended over the stage fell. Two people were beneath it. Before I could think, my body moved, and then this happened. It was not courage or anything. My body just moved first."

The woman said nothing.

"So if someone healed it, it would feel as if what happened that day was no longer mine. As if even my body moving that day had been handed over to someone else."

Since my injury, it was something I had never voiced to anyone while leaning on my cane. I had not said it to Vodianitsa or Danika. Yet it came out before someone I had only just met.

It must have come out because she was someone I had only just met. Because she was not someone I would see again tomorrow in the props room, I did not stop and went all the way through.

"The two people I pushed away are standing onstage unharmed now."

I raised my head.

"One is a principal, and one is in the front row. They were in the last performance, and one is singing in the rehearsal room today too. That is enough for me."

Until now, I had only said that is enough for me in my head. Saying it aloud made it shorter than it had been inside.

Only after finishing did I breathe. It was the longest thing I had said since entering the shop, and the longest thing I had said about my leg since coming to this land. Throughout it, my hands had been gripping the teacup tightly.

At the words two people, the woman’s eyes wavered once.

There was no other way to describe it. Her golden eye and blue eye widened ever so slightly at the same time, then returned. Once they had returned, the woman did not speak for a while.

"...I see."

The breath with which she let out those words was long, and her voice sounded different from before. It was still slow, but something twisted once inside it, and she covered that twist with a single breath.

"I see. Two people are standing onstage."

"Yes."

"And that is enough for you?"

"Yes. It is enough."

"Does it not hurt?"

"Only the day after a cold day. It doesn’t hurt today."

"I see."

The woman did not lift her cup again. Still looking at the untouched cup, she asked:

"What did those two people say?"

"One of them got angry in the hospital room. She asked why I had done it."

"She got angry."

"Yes. She said she was angry because I would do it again."

The woman did not respond to that. She remained still for a long time, longer than any silence since she had entered the shop.

Then she touched her cup. It was the first time she had touched it since coming in. She lifted it and took a sip, her eyes remaining on the tea.

The cup made a sound when she set it down. It was small, but it lingered on the table longer than such a sound should have.

"To give an answer like that..."

The woman began, then stopped. The place where her unfinished words should have gone remained empty, and she did not fill it.

Then she turned her head to the side.

She was looking neither at me nor at the window, but somewhere around her own right shoulder. There was nothing there. Looking at that nothing, she said:

"Nabel, you’re loud."

It was a low voice directed neither at me nor at anyone in the shop, and beyond that shoulder was only the street outside the window. No one in the shop heard her words.

As she spoke, her blue right eye brightened once, then returned to normal.

Afterward, the woman looked at me again. Her face said that nothing had happened, but I could not loosen my hand from around my cup.

She was a strange person.

I thought that, but the thought did not go in a bad direction. I had seen people talking to themselves at the theater and on the streets. This person simply wore stranger clothes and spoke less than they did.

"I’ll go first."

The woman stood.

She stood immediately, without recrossing her legs. Her veil swayed once as she rose, and her long golden hair spilled from the chair back. The hand pushing in the chair was slow.

"Thank you for keeping me company."

The woman stopped at that.

She stopped with her hand on the chair and looked at me. They were not the eyes she had had when she first sat down. She seemed about to say something with those eyes, but did not.

"It’s not something to thank me for. I was the one who sat down."

"Even so."

"Even so."

The woman rolled those words around in her mouth once, then turned away. Her footsteps made no sound, and as she passed among the sixteen people, a path opened without anyone needing to move aside.

The door opened and closed.

Two cups remained. Mine was half empty, while the woman’s had lost only one sip and was still steaming.

The sounds of the shop returned. The bargaining at the next table had ended, and the three women were still laughing. Amid those sounds, this table alone was quieter than before.

The owner passed by and looked at the woman’s cup. Then she walked on without clearing it, and for some reason, that cup not being cleared stayed with me.

The honey bowl remained beside my cup, exactly where the woman had pushed it. The spoon rested across the rim.

I looked at the dried flowers in the middle of the table. It was already growing dark outside, but the golden light still faintly remained. I did not touch it.

I added more honey and finished my tea. In the place where the bitterness settled, sweetness did not remain alone. Something else remained with it.

I left the window fogged over again. As I watched the street darken beyond the mist, the cup became empty.

I stood and went to the owner.

"Um, I’d like to pay. For both cups, including the lady from earlier."

The owner put down her tray and looked at me. Her expression was a little strange.

"They were both paid for."

"When?"

"That customer paid for both as she left. Wasn’t she with you?"

"...No. We weren’t together."

"Really? Then come again next time. With her."

The owner picked up her tray again.

I stood holding the door handle for a moment. There was something I should have said to the person who had paid for both cups, but she was gone. Even if she had been there, I would not have known what to say.

The street outside was darker than before, and the wind was unchanged. Across the road, the spot beside the theater’s stone pillars where performance-day lines formed lay empty.

There was only one thing I knew: a name.

Rhinedottir. It was a name I felt I had heard somewhere, paired with a face I felt I had seen somewhere, but even standing in the street, I could not remember where either had come from.

I went around along the theater wall and entered the back alley.

The sun had set behind the rooftops. As I went around the wall, lights came on one by one in the houses facing the street, and yellow light stretched long over the powder beneath every window.

When I passed the three steps beside the back door, there was no sound from inside. Construction and singing were both over for the day, and no light spilled through the cracks of the door.

I passed the hollowed stones, the wall’s shadow, and the gaps between stones at the corner in turn. The tip of my cane did not slip anywhere.

The powder was scattered again today. Perhaps it had been sprinkled anew over the marks I made that morning, because no tracks remained visible, and my cane tip pushed the powder aside bit by bit.

At the end of the back alley, I saw the blue door with light in its window. I did not count how many steps it took to reach it.

My left arm was still the same.

It remained there with nowhere to put it. Even after sitting in the teahouse for an hour, that arm had not been put in order. Instead, something else had become clear.

My left shin.

It was the heaviness that had always been there. It had never gone away, so most days I passed without even realizing it was there. Only the day after cold weather did numbness settle over it and make me notice.

Today had not been cold, but it was clear.

With every step, the places where the bone had fused in two spots felt heavy, and that heaviness climbed all the way into my right hand on the cane. It did not grow lighter even once until I reached the blue door.

I was putting more strength than usual into the cane, and my right hand tingled. My left shin seemed to be drawing that strength out of me.

When I stopped before the blue door, I heard Danika inside setting dinner, the sound of dishes being placed down.

Light and the smell of the stove leaked through the gap around the door. Even as I turned the key and pushed it open, my left shin remained heavy.

======

It was gold.

That afternoon in human time, gold mingled into the white light at the center of the assembly hall. It had spread from a snow-covered northern city, from the street before the theater’s front entrance.

Ronova arrived first. The seven petals within her golden eyes were distinct, yet nothing leaked from the rest of her, making her all the quieter.

Asmoday came next. She walked out from beyond the light with her arms crossed.

Istaroth came slowly, looking down at the ring around her wrist. There was no enthusiasm in the eyes watching the ring, but whenever those eyes left it to look below, they lingered a little longer.

The fourth seat was empty.

"It was the aura of Life."

Ronova spoke.

"Gold spread in the middle of the street, before Father."

No one answered because there was nothing to answer. All three knew that only one of the four could release a golden aura of Life.

The light moved.

The fourth arrived, walking slowly with no sign of urgency. First came her veil, golden hair flowing beneath it, and above her head floated an unhidden golden ring.

"Everyone’s here."

"Where did you go?"

Asmoday asked. Her question descended from on high.

"I merely sat in a teahouse."

"If you sat in a teahouse while twisting even mortal eyes, then you did not merely sit there."

"I merely hid myself. There was only one person I wanted to be seen by."

"I am asking who that one person was."

Rhinedottir did not answer. She walked to her place and sat down. Of the four, Rhinedottir alone had a seat.

"You alone broke what the four of us decided."

Asmoday’s voice dropped another level.

"We do not approach without cause. If one steps forward first, the other three stop them. That rule is what bound us. You broke it by opening your Authority in the middle of the street. Before mortal eyes."

"The mortals did not see. I hid it so they would not."

"Making them unable to see is the same as using it."

"So what did you do while sitting there?"

Ronova asked, her voice low.

"I drank tea. The one Father chose."

"And?"

"I asked Father whether he wanted his leg healed."

The assembly hall fell silent.

It was not the light that went quiet. The three did. Ronova’s petals opened enough to count each division, Asmoday uncrossed her arms, and Istaroth took her hand from the ring.

"He said no."

Rhinedottir said it slowly.

"He said his body moved first that day, and if someone else healed him, what happened that day would no longer be his. He said the two people he pushed away were standing safely onstage, and that was enough for him."

No one spoke.

All four could heal him, yet none of them had been able to suggest it in the assembly hall that day. They remained silent because they could not explain to one another—or to themselves—why they could not bring it up. That silence had lasted nearly three months.

Rhinedottir alone broke through those three months, went to him, and asked. Father refused.

The fact that only one had asked, and that all four had been refused, came to the three of them at once.

Istaroth was the first to speak.

"You asked. What none of the four of us could ask."

Her slow, languid voice made the assembly hall even quieter. Asmoday seemed about to do something at those words, then did not. Instead, she crossed her arms again.

Ronova turned away.

Without a word, and with her petal-shaped pupils still clear, she walked beyond the white light. Nothing leaked from her retreating back, but one could see the hand pressing everything down so that nothing would.

Only after she vanished beyond the light did Asmoday speak.

"I acknowledge that you brought back an answer. Whether you deserved to receive it is a separate question."

"Haa, as you wish."

Istaroth looked at her ring again and disappeared slowly. Only Rhinedottir remained.

『You asked. That’s enough.』

Naberius spoke in her mind, and beneath her veil, Rhinedottir gave a small shake of her head.

"Father said it was enough. Not you, Nabel."

『That means it is enough.』

Rhinedottir did not answer. Though she knew the golden aura she had left on the teahouse table would scatter before a day had passed, she did not retrieve it.

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