Chapter 11: Asha's War, Briefly Visible

The door appeared at 2:47 exactly, as it always did, and Mara was through it before Asha could say a word about punctuality.

She had come straight from Aldgate, still wet from the knee down, trainers squelching at every step with a sound she found increasingly embarrassing. The hem of her coat had dried to a stiff, salt-grey tidemark. Brekke rode her left shoulder with the manner of someone who has decided to find the whole situation beneath commentary, which from him meant he had opinions he had not yet decided whether to share.

The temple was as she had left it the first time she'd seen it — warm stone, cedar, old cloth, the ghost traces of paint on the curved ceiling — except that four of the seven figures present on that first visit were now three. She noticed this without meaning to, the way she noticed everything: the slight redistribution of light in the room, one alcove's small offering-dish receiving the lamplight at a different angle than before. One absence making the remaining three more apparent, the way a missing tooth makes itself known more loudly than any tooth that stayed.