Chapter 16: Sib's Last True Prophecy

The text arrived at eight forty-seven in the morning, which was earlier than Mara had learned to expect anything good.

It came from a number she didn't have saved, but the message was brief enough that it didn't need a name attached. *The shop today. Before noon if you can manage it. — S.*

Mara read it twice, put her phone face-down on the kitchen table, and looked at Brekke, who was on the windowsill eating something she preferred not to identify. He had been quieter than usual since the bus. Not the companionable quiet she had grown accustomed to, the silence of a creature conserving itself for observation, but something closer to restraint, as if he were holding a thought gently in both hands and hadn't yet decided whether to set it down.