Chapter 7: Sable's Bookshop and Eight Months Without Dreams

The rain had not stopped in three days. This was not unusual for Edinburgh in November, but Aeron had begun to suspect it was performing.

Donal arrived the following afternoon with biscuits — shortbread, in a tartan tin that had the slightly guilty air of a tourist purchase made at speed — and set them on the table between Aeron and Seris with the confidence of someone establishing territory through carbohydrate. He was wearing the same coat as yesterday. He had the look of a person who had slept, but not well, and whose dreams had asked him questions he was still working on.

"I brought provisions," he said. "I'm counting this as collaborative research."