Chapter 23: Maren Makes Her Choice — Slowly, With Full Knowledge

The kettle had been on for twenty minutes.

Aldric had filled it twice — once when they came through the door, once when the first boiling went ignored — and now it sat on the hob making the small preparatory sounds of a thing about to perform again, and none of them moved toward it. The kitchen had the quality of a room that has been waiting. Aldric stood at the counter with his hands flat against the stone surface, not gripping, just resting, as though reminding himself of the texture of solid things. Maren sat at the table with her mother's journal open in front of her, though she had not turned a page in some time. Cael occupied the chair nearest the door with the particular economy of someone who has made himself as small as his stillness will allow, which is not very small but is the gesture that counts.

The fog was doing something outside. Through the kitchen window Maren could see it moving against the glass, not pressing, not threatening, simply present in the way it always was in Ashveil — attentive, ambient, a quality of air that had never learned to behave like ordinary weather.