Windfall

The woman had brought her husband's good boots.

Tavian had promised to have him ready for burial before dawn. Harl had been dead for six years, but the quarry had kept his body working to pay what he owed. His wife had needed most of that time to find someone willing to bring him home. Tavian did such work in the cellar beneath Mara's laundry, removing the bindings that made the dead obey. The city of Veyr licensed men to fit them. It was less willing to let anyone take them out.

Tavian wished he had covered the feet before letting her downstairs. She had stopped halfway to the worktable, her basket caught against her hip, and he knew what she was looking at. Two toes were missing from Harl's left foot. The quarry foreman hadn't mentioned an accident when Tavian collected him, though he had found time to complain about losing a serviceable worker.

"These are his Sunday ones," she said. "I thought they'd be better."

"They'll do." It came out too briskly. Tavian drew the sheet over Harl's feet and tried again. "You can put them here. I've cleared a place."

She set the boots beneath the table, carefully together. Someone had polished them, working blacking into the creases across the toes. Tavian hoped it had been her brother. He didn't like to imagine her sitting up with a brush, preparing for this while he argued over the price of getting her husband out of the quarry.

"Will he be able to walk?"

Tavian's fingers tightened on the sheet. He had explained this when she first came to him. Apparently he had explained it badly. "Once I take the binding out, he won't move again. I'm sorry. I can bring him home to you, but I can't-"

"I know he's dead." She looked up at him, and he felt the heat rise into his face. "I meant when you collected him. Did they make him walk here?"

"No. I brought a cart." He left out the foreman taking Harl under the arms and dropping him onto it before Tavian could get round to the other side. "There were blankets. I brought him lying down."

She nodded, although her hands stayed clenched around the basket. Tavian waited. He was usually better at this once people started asking about money or the gate permits. Those were questions he could answer without making someone look at him like that.

"Would you like to show me what you brought?" he asked.

There was a clean shirt, a pair of trousers and a yellow scarf with green stitches at one end. She laid them out within reach of the solvent basin, and he moved it before a splash could spoil anything. The scarf had been folded around the shirt. She smoothed it flat, caught a loose thread beneath her nail and began worrying it free.

"He made this himself. Told everyone I had, of course. You'd have thought knitting was something you could be arrested for."

"Was he any good?"

"At knitting? Better than me." For the first time she looked properly at Tavian. "He made the heels too narrow when he did socks, though. Wouldn't listen when I told him. Said my feet were wrong."

Tavian smiled before he could decide whether he ought to. She seemed relieved by it.

While he cleaned the skin beneath Harl's jaw, she told him about the socks, and the onions her husband used to pick out of his supper and leave on the edge of her plate. He had once won a goose and brought it home inside his coat. Tavian asked how far he'd managed before it bit him, which brought out a longer story involving a tavern landlord and a ruined waistcoat. He listened with more interest than she seemed to expect. By the time she apologised for keeping him, he wanted to know whether the landlord had ever been paid.

"You're not keeping me," he said. "This part takes a while."

It didn't, usually. He was being unnecessarily careful around the little brass disc set into Harl's skin. The man had a sparse beard, grey at the chin, which would catch in the cloth if Tavian rubbed too hard. He had probably complained about that too, when he was alive. Tavian could almost hear the voice his wife had used for him.

Beside the basin lay the order authorising Harl's disposal. According to this paper, the body was no longer fit for work and could be destroyed. Without it, the quarry could reclaim him even after his wife had paid to collect him. Tavian had forged the official's signature himself. It had cost him two attempts and most of the afternoon; now that he looked at it again, the final stroke was too long. He turned the paper over. There would be time to worry about the deputy registrar's handwriting after Harl was safely out of the city.

"I'll need a few minutes to finish," he told her. "Mara's upstairs. She can make you some tea."

The woman glanced at the tools. "You want me to go."

"You can stay if you'd rather. But there may be some movement when I remove it."

Her eyes went straight to her husband's covered feet.

"He won't feel anything," Tavian said.

"How do you know?"

He was glad she'd asked. He wished more people would, instead of accepting whatever they were told by someone with a clean apron.

"I checked the binding before I brought him here, and again while you were talking. There's nothing of your husband caught in it. It makes his body answer the quarry bell; that's all it can do."

She studied his face. Tavian resisted the urge to explain the tests. He could talk for half an hour about what he had felt through the brass and still leave her wondering whether Harl was frightened.

"I wouldn't do this if I thought it could hurt him."

After a moment she nodded. She touched Harl's hair, smoothing the patch above his ear where his quarry cap had rubbed it thin, then picked up her empty basket.

"The scarf goes under his collar," she said at the stairs. "Otherwise it rubs."

"I'll remember."

He kept his attention on the table until the door closed behind her. It seemed unkind to watch her realise what she had said.

The laundry press was still going next door. Almost midnight, and Mara would be insisting she had only one more load to finish. Tavian had been foolish enough to believe her at supper and leave his washing in the queue. By morning she would be complaining about his cuffs again.

He drew his stool closer to Harl's shoulder and settled the wedge beneath the edge of the seal, the brass disc that held the binding in place. Fine metal anchors joined it to the body. Some kept the flesh from decaying; another carried the order to work when the quarry bell rang. He had to loosen the preserving anchors first, leaving the command attached until he could remove the whole disc safely. Get impatient, pull the wrong anchor, and Harl would try to go back to the quarry. Tavian had seen that happen once during his apprenticeship. He still checked the order with his thumb before applying pressure, even when he was tired enough to resent the habit.

The first two anchors came free cleanly. At the third, Harl's hand clenched against the sheet and his heels scraped the table.

Tavian held the wedge steady until the body relaxed. Then he eased out the brass disc and sat back.

Through the ceiling came the muffled sound of crying. He looked up, listening despite himself. Mara's press stopped a moment later, and he heard her cross the floor.

Good. She would know whether to say anything.

He had promised himself he would stop paying quarry foremen out of his own pocket. Harl's wife had brought seven shillings; the foreman had wanted ten, and by then Tavian had already seen the polished boots waiting beside her door. Now his rent was short, and there was a useless brass seal cooling in his hand. He put it in the stove to soften. The tinker across the river would buy the metal once it was flattened beyond recognition. Four pennies, if Tavian caught him sober.

He ought to have bargained harder.

By the time Mara came down, Harl was washed and dressed, with the yellow scarf tucked beneath his collar. Tavian was struggling with the second boot.

"Give it here," she said.

"I nearly have it."

"You said that before I came downstairs."

She took the boot and reached across him for a knife. Before Tavian could object, she had slit the leather up the back.

"That's my lettering knife."

"And now he's wearing his boot." She eased it over Harl's heel and pulled the trouser leg down to hide the cut. "Her brother's brought the cart."

Tavian took the knife back. There was blacking on the blade. He would be sharpening it before he could touch vellum again, though he had to admit the boot looked perfectly respectable.

Tavian put the knife down and checked the folded order beside Harl's shoulder. He had written everything the gate should need, but he knew how easily a guard could find a reason to keep a cart waiting. "Will they get through the east gate?"

"My nephew's on until six. They'll have time." Mara reached past him for the blanket. When he asked whether the widow knew to show the papers, she stopped with it in her hands. "I've told her. Twice." Her expression softened. "Come and help me, love. She wants to take him home." Tavian let go of the order. He would only crease it further, and the signature was no more convincing for being inspected again.

Outside, the woman waited beneath the laundry awning while they settled Harl in the cart. Her brother drew the blanket over him, leaving his face uncovered until she was ready.

She caught Tavian's hand as he stepped away. A coin pressed into his palm.

"For the trouble."

"You've paid me."

"It took longer than you said."

That was his own fault. He had wanted to hear the end of the story about the goose.

"Keep it for the gate," he said, closing her fingers over the coin. Mara's nephew wouldn't ask, but someone else might be standing beside him. "And give them the paper before they start asking questions. It's all there."

She thanked him again. Tavian stood back while her brother helped her onto the seat, wishing he had found something better to say than instructions about a gate.

When the cart turned out of the alley, Mara held the door open for him. He went inside before she could ask how much of his rent had gone with it.

"That had better be the last," she said.

Tavian glanced towards his desk. Beneath a chipped cup lay the slip that had arrived through the laundry hatch at dusk, wrapped around a half-crown. He'd spent some of the money already. "One more. There's a collection coming from Saint Ordan's."

Mara looked at the slip, then at him. He knew that expression. Four years ago, when he'd tried to come downstairs and work three days after his chest surgery, it had preceded the confiscation of his boots. He was twenty-two now and owned a second pair, but he doubted that would make much difference to her.

"The order expires at dawn," he said. "And there's no family waiting this time. I can finish and go straight to bed."

"You can eat first." She went upstairs before he could say he'd already eaten, which was fortunate, because she had been there when he hadn't. He put the lettering knife well out of her reach and washed his hands. By the time she returned with a covered bowl, his stomach had begun to hurt. Barley and the last of yesterday's chicken, with more onions than chicken. He thanked her with enough feeling to make her touch the back of his head on her way past.

"Leave the bowl. I'll get it in the morning."

He waited until she'd gone before lifting the cup off the slip. One institutional specimen, foreign origin, condemned for thermal disposal. Saint Ordan's was the city's College of Applied Anatomy, where physicians trained and new bindings were developed. Its unwanted bodies usually went to the furnaces. A little ladder drawn in brown ink at the corner told him his contact there had diverted another one to the laundry for burial. He checked the mark again, although there was no reason it should have changed since supper. He knew that hand. Berrit would bring the wagon, complain about the hour, and help him unload. There ought to be nothing difficult left tonight.

He was scraping the bottom of the bowl when the wheels stopped outside.

The driver wasn't Berrit. A young man sat hunched inside a municipal cape too big for him, his face turned towards the mouth of the alley. Tavian stopped beside the rear wheel and waited for him to notice.

"Where's Berrit?"

"Sick."

"Since when? I saw her yesterday." He hadn't meant it as an accusation. She had complained about her sister, her horse and the cost of oats without mentioning that she felt ill. The young man pulled the cape higher beneath his chin.

"How should I know? They told me where to bring it. That's all."

Tavian could have left it there if the reins hadn't been shaking. The driver had a split lip, too; a little blood showed where he had worried it open. Perhaps he'd been in a fight. Perhaps Berrit really was sick and had sent the first fool she could find. Tavian wanted either explanation to be good enough. He was tired, and the half-crown was already short of what he'd need to give it back.

Under the wagon's canvas lay a case almost as long as his worktable, bound with iron and strapped down at four points. The white sunburst of Saint Ordan's had been stencilled across the lid.

"There's only supposed to be one." Tavian looked back at the driver. "One body."

"That's all there is." The young man climbed down, reluctantly enough to suggest that if Tavian could have unloaded it alone, he would have left him to do it.

They had to lower the case onto the trolley in stages. Tavian's gloves did little against the cold of the iron bands, and by the time they wheeled it through the workshop door his fingers ached. Berrit would have told him what he was getting before letting him agree to take it. He straightened, ready to ask the driver who had loaded the wagon, and found a receipt being pushed into his hand.

The address was right. So was the disposal reference. Beside it, someone had drawn a red triangle.

"What's this?" Tavian kept the paper away from the offered pen. "If that's a fever mark, you can put it straight back on the wagon. There's a laundry upstairs. People bring their children's clothes here."

"It's not fever." The driver looked at him properly for the first time. He couldn't have been much older than Tavian. "Please. I've got to go."

It would have been easier if he had tried to bully him. Tavian knew what to do with men who threatened to report his premises while handing over a body they'd stolen. This one looked as though someone had already hurt him for being slow.

"You should have brought an explanation," Tavian muttered, and took the pen.

He signed the dead bone-boiler's name. The man whose premises had stood here before Mara bought the building had been gone for eighteen months, but the city kept renewing his permit as long as somebody paid the fee. Tavian had once worried that a clerk would notice the signature changing. He was beginning to suspect nobody looked at anything except the amount enclosed.

The driver was out of the door before Tavian could return the pen. The wagon rattled away at a pace Berrit would never have allowed in the alley, leaving him with the receipt and an increasingly unpleasant sense that he had agreed to something he didn't understand.

He barred the door. If the case held anything diseased, he would have to tell Mara now, before it was opened. He went over the inventory fixed beneath a cloudy pane of glass near the head: instruments, binding components, tissue samples. Nothing about illness. Nothing about the person inside, either. Someone had scraped a line away beneath the reference number so thoroughly that rubbing the glass clean told him no more.

"Very helpful," he said to the empty room.

The new padlocks were cheap. He had both open in less time than it had taken to get the case through the doorway, but the lid resisted him. A rubberised seal ran around the rim. Someone had spent money keeping the contents cold, which seemed an odd kindness for a body on its way to a furnace.

Cold air washed over his wrists when he lifted the lid. The man inside was enormous. His ankles disappeared beneath a reinforced footpiece, and his hands lay wired against his thighs. A grey hospital shift covered him to the knees. Tavian's first thought was that he would have to wake Mara after all; there was no possibility of getting him onto the table alone. Then he brought the lamp nearer and forgot about the table.

There were ridges beneath the skin of the man's fingers, narrow and dark, with others rising in pairs along his throat. As the light moved across them, brown and green showed through the black. Tavian had seen those colours once before, on a visitor standing beneath a canopy outside the Council House. He remembered trying to climb a bollard for a better look and his father catching his shoulder. A Vathren, people had said, passing the word back through the crowd. One of the northern people whose bodies grew hard mineral ridges beneath the skin. Taller than humans, harder to injure, his father had said; then he had admitted he knew little else about them. Tavian had spent the journey home asking questions his father couldn't answer.

He wished he had a few of those answers now. He knew what the anatomy school paid for unusual bodies. He had helped families petition for ordinary ones often enough to know how rarely anything came back out. Why surrender this man? What had they finished doing to him?

His hair had been cropped close. Old scars crossed his throat and vanished beneath the shift; newer cuts ran from his ears to the underside of his jaw. Set into the hollow beneath his chin was an oval plate of white ceramic. Seven copper filaments disappeared from its edges into the flesh. One wire ran under the shift, reappearing at the wrist before joining the restraint.

Tavian set his notebook beside the case. Drawing the plate gave him a moment to consider it without touching anything. He knew quarry seals, mill bindings, the cheap municipal kind fitted to dead road workers. None had ever needed seven connections. There was no maker's mark, and nothing he could recognise well enough to trust. He could leave it until morning, send word to someone who knew the northern work-if he could find such a person without explaining how he had come by the body.

He took off his gloves and touched the ceramic.

A pressure struck the inside of his wrist. His hand jerked back before he could stop it, knocking the notebook sideways. For a moment he could feel the spot as distinctly as if someone had pressed a thumb there, though nothing had touched him except the plate.

He looked towards the stairs. The press was silent now. A board creaked overhead; Mara getting into bed, probably. He could hear himself breathing and felt foolish about it. A strange binding didn't have to be a dangerous one.

This time he used a probe. Under its tip the plate trembled, stopped and trembled again. Ordinary seals gave a steady resistance. He waited for this one to settle into a rhythm he could recognise, but after a pause came three short disturbances, the last a little delayed.

Tavian checked the man's throat for a pulse. Nothing. The polished back of his forceps stayed clear beneath the nostrils. Both tests should have reassured him, yet the chest beneath the shift was raised and the muscles at the base of the throat stood taut. He began counting, waiting for a breath to come out. By thirty he had lost track of whether he was counting too quickly.

The chest hadn't moved.

There were stories about people certified dead too soon, and other stories about what happened to them after binding. The College denied all of it. Tavian had never had to decide which stories he believed while standing beside an open case.

"Can you hear me?" His voice sounded so rough that he cleared his throat and tried again. "If you can hear me, do that again. The three taps."

He held the probe still. Three disturbances trembled through it, each distinct against his fingers.

Tavian backed into the trolley. Pain flared along his shin, and he caught the side of the case to keep from falling. He'd been about to leave this until morning. He looked at the raised chest, trying to work out how long the man had been held like that, then forced himself to think about whom he could fetch.

The nearest physician he trusted not to call a constable lived across the toll bridge. Half an hour there, longer to bring him back. Mara knew a midwife in Reed Street, but this was no ordinary injury, and Tavian couldn't carry the man anywhere himself. He could wake Mara and send her. He could go himself, leave someone here to watch-

A tear slid from the corner of the man's closed eye into his cropped hair.

"I'm still here," Tavian said. He hadn't realised how far he had stepped away. "My name's Tavian. You're under a laundry, in my workshop. I don't work for the College." He brought the lamp close enough to light the plate. "I need to know if I'm hurting you. Can you give me one tap for yes?"

One disturbance reached the probe. He asked a second question, something the man could answer without knowing where he was: whether his hands were tied. Another tap. He had something he could use now, though he would have preferred a physician and a set of instructions.

"All right. If I hurt you, give me three. I'll stop."

The wire around the wrists could come off first. That, at least, was familiar work. Tavian cut it away carefully, uncovering a groove deep enough to make him swear under his breath. He covered it with clean cloth before freeing the other hand. The man didn't move. Tavian kept the probe against the plate where a tap would reach his fingers.

"I'm going to check each of these wires. I won't pull anything yet."

Four returned the same flat pressure through the probe. Two seemed inert. At the seventh, his stomach lurched. For an instant there was empty space beneath his feet, a drop so great that he gripped the case to keep himself from pitching into it. The workshop came back as soon as he lifted the probe. He stared at the flagstones until he trusted them to stay where they were.

That had come from the man. It had to have. He wasn't going to understand how tonight, but perhaps he could find out what it meant.

"Is that the one keeping you here?" he asked, touching the wire again, lightly enough to bear it. "This one?" A single tap answered. He checked once more before setting the probe down. He couldn't be certain what he was about to release, but the man inside the binding wanted it gone.

The other six wires needed separating so they wouldn't touch when the plate shifted. Tavian wrapped them in damp linen, then eased his wedge under the seventh. His thumb found the chip in the pale handle, the notch he always rested it in for fine work. His hands had steadied. He was grateful enough for that to put everything except the angle of the tool out of his mind.

The man's eyes opened. Brown eyes, staring at him. Tavian had expected something unfamiliar; instead he found himself being watched by someone who was frightened and waiting for him to get this right.

"Nearly," he said, then wished he hadn't promised it. "Keep still a little longer."

The wire came free with a soft click. The man dragged in a breath so violently that Tavian dropped the probe. His back arched, one hand cracking the wooden rim of the case, and Tavian reached to stop him striking his head.

Fingers closed around his wrist. The pain was immediate, running halfway to his elbow. He froze with his other hand open where the man could see it.

"Let go." Nothing happened. The man's lips moved, but all that came out was a rough breath. Tavian tried to keep the fear out of his voice. "You're hurting me. Please let go of my wrist."

The grip loosened at once. Tavian stepped back, cradling his hand, and only then realised the man was looking at the wedge. He followed it as Tavian moved, struggling to raise his head.

"Where did you get that?"

"My teacher gave it to me." Tavian glanced down at the tool. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"His name. Tell me his name."

"Edrin Pell. He died last winter."

The man shut his eyes. His jaw trembled, shifting the wires still beneath it, and Tavian stood holding the wedge without knowing what to do with his hand. He had never seen anyone look at a tool that way. Pell had called the pale handles old stock. Whenever Tavian asked what they were made from, he had been told to stop prying and learn to use them.

"What is it?" he asked.

The man opened his eyes again. "My mother."

Tavian looked down. "The handle? You mean it's made from-"

"From her body." The man's voice was barely audible. "The ridges you can see in mine. They cut hers into pieces."

Tavian stared at the pale material. He had thought it was stone, some fine northern mineral Pell could afford and he could not. "How can you know it's hers?"

"Something of us stays in it. I can feel her." His gaze never left Tavian's hand. "Please."

The handle rested across Tavian's palm, warm where he'd been gripping it. He'd used it for three years. Only yesterday he had scraped dried varnish off his desk with the edge, knowing Pell would have sworn at him for being careless. That was the thought he couldn't get past: all those times he'd worried about damaging an expensive tool.

"I didn't know." He laid it on the clean cloth because he couldn't bear to keep holding it, then regretted how quickly he had put it down. "He never told me."

The man scarcely seemed to hear. One hand lifted towards the cloth, barely clearing the rim of the case. Tavian wrapped the wedge in linen and placed it in his palm. The fingers closed around it with a care that made Tavian look away.

For a while he could think of nothing useful to say. He wanted to explain that he would never have bought it if he'd known, that he had trusted Pell, that there were five more pale handles on the bench and now he was afraid to look at them. None of that would help the man in front of him. Tavian could still feel the ache in his wrist. He pressed it against his apron and waited until he could trust himself to touch the remaining wires.

"I need to finish taking these out. Is there anything I should know before I do?"

The man looked past him. "The door."

"It's barred."

His gaze moved to the high window. "Cover it." The effort of speaking left him breathing through his mouth, and Tavian stopped asking questions. His coat would do; he had hung it across that window often enough when there was work he didn't want seen from the alley. This time he checked the bar as well.

The man was trying to sit up when Tavian returned. He looked far too large to be so weak. Beneath the shift his broad frame had wasted until the bones stood out at the wrists, and there were healed punctures along his forearms, each surrounded by a small white scar. Tavian wedged a folded blanket behind his shoulders and helped him lean against it.

"You know my name," he said. "What should I call you?"

"Ilyr."

He had to hold his breath to catch the sound. "Ilyr," he repeated, and received a slight nod. It helped to have a name. He could ask Ilyr to turn his head, warn him that the next wire might hurt, offer water when the last filament came free. Tavian had never been particularly reassuring, but he could manage those things without letting his eyes drift towards the tools.

Ilyr watched every movement. He said nothing when the last wire brought blood with it, and Tavian cleaned the wound as gently as he could. The plate went on a metal tray beside the stove, out of the way. He would examine it later. For now Ilyr was trying to take the cup, his hands shaking too badly to hold it, and Tavian had to persuade him to accept a little help.

"Just let me keep a hand under it. You can tell me when you've had enough."

After the third mouthful Ilyr turned away. Tavian lowered the cup, wondering whether he should offer food or whether that would make him sick. He ought to fetch that physician now. There was no reason to keep pretending he could do everything himself.

"What year?" Ilyr asked.

Tavian told him. Ilyr stared at the wall for so long that Tavian began to wonder whether he'd understood the question, or whether they counted years differently in the north. He was about to ask when Ilyr said, "Eleven."

"Years?"

One slow nod.

Tavian set the cup down. Eleven years ago he had been a boy. He tried to fit everything since then into the time this man had lost: leaving home, the apprenticeship, his surgery, Pell's death. The laundry had changed hands; the city had put up a new bridge. He had complained about all of it while Ilyr was somewhere beneath the College.

And tonight they had sent him to be burned.

Above them, Mara's bed creaked, followed by her familiar cough. Tavian nearly called her name. He needed someone else to look at this and tell him what to do, but the thought of her coming downstairs made him see the room as she would: the open case, the College mark, a living man they had no way to hide. Her business was upstairs. She had trusted him to work beneath it.

He went to the desk for the receipt. There had to be something he had missed. The red triangle had blurred beneath the driver's damp thumb, but on the back, almost hidden by a fold, he found four words in cramped pencil.

Do not ring bells.

Tavian read them again. He hadn't rung anything. He looked towards the stove, where a faint, uneven light had begun to show through the white ceramic on the tray.

"Ilyr. Can this call someone?" He picked up the tray, careful not to touch the plate. "Is that what it's doing?"

"The College," Ilyr said. "They use it to find us."

Ilyr's eyes moved to the pipe above the stove. "How long?"

"Five minutes. Six, perhaps." Tavian followed his gaze. "That's the water pipe."

"Move it away."

He carried the tray into the middle of the room. The glow faded, but the ceramic didn't go dark. A low sound rose in the pipes, vibrating in his teeth. He knew that sound. He had heard it all his life when the eastern water tower changed its pressure before dawn. His mother used to tell him a star had fallen into the reservoir, and for years he'd wondered why the water tasted of iron. Now he stood listening to the familiar noise and wished he understood a single thing about the pipes running through his own ceiling.

Ilyr was trying to climb out of the case.

"Wait." Tavian put the tray on the desk and caught him before he fell. His injured wrist nearly gave under the weight. "You can't walk. Let me get someone to help."

"They'll come." Ilyr clung to the rim, staring at the covered window. Tavian asked who, but he only repeated it, with an urgency that made Tavian want to drag the trolley in front of the door. He could barely keep Ilyr upright. How was he supposed to get him out of the building?

Three slow knocks shook dust from the lintel.

Upstairs, Mara's feet struck the floor. Tavian's first, absurd impulse was to tell her he had it under control. "Go back to bed," he called instead. "It's a collection."

The floorboards went quiet before she reached the stairs. She knew his voice too well. He waited for her to call back, hoping she would keep quiet and come down, hoping she would stay where she was. Another knock interrupted him.

"The permit's in the front window," he shouted towards the alley. "Come back during business hours."

"There is a white binding plate in this room." The voice through the wood was low and unhurried, with an accent Tavian couldn't place. "Put it in dry salt."

Ilyr had gone still. His hand tightened around the wrapped wedge.

"Who are you?" Tavian demanded.

"Rhauden. Put the plate in salt. I can hear it from the street."

That was hardly a reason to trust him. Tavian looked at the tray, trying to judge whether he could reach the preserving jar without letting Ilyr fall. He wanted to ask what else the stranger could hear, how he knew what was in the room, whether anyone had come with him. Then Ilyr lifted his head.

"Do it."

Tavian eased him back against the blanket. The salt jar stood beside the stove; he emptied enough into a clean basin to cover the bottom, laid the plate inside and buried it. The vibration stopped so abruptly that he braced himself against the bench. He hadn't realised how much of it he could feel through the floor.

Nothing moved in the salt. He waited another breath before reaching for the long skinning knife. Whoever stood outside had helped them. Tavian wasn't ready to put the knife down on that account.

"Are you alone?" he asked through the door.

"At present."

Tavian looked at the bar. "You understand why that isn't much of an answer?"

Before the stranger could reply, Ilyr spoke a few words in a language Tavian had never heard. The answer came at once, sharp with surprise. Ilyr's shoulders eased against the blanket.

"Open it," he said.

Tavian wanted to be sure. He wanted a name he knew, someone Mara trusted, time to ask what was happening. Ilyr was looking at the door with the first hint of relief Tavian had seen in his face. That would have to be enough.

He lifted the bar, keeping the knife low beside his thigh, and opened the door as far as the chain allowed.

The man outside filled the gap. Rain darkened his coat across a broad chest, and pale hair, tied back from his face, lay wet against the collar. He was taller than any human Tavian knew. A narrow mineral ridge followed his jaw beneath brown skin, vanishing behind his ear. Another Vathren. Until tonight Tavian had seen one in his life, and now there was a second at his door who appeared to know what Tavian had brought into the workshop.

Rhauden's gaze dropped to the knife. He stepped back to give the door room to open.

"Keep it if you need it," he said. "But let me see him."

Tavian looked once more at Ilyr, then slipped the chain free. Rhauden stooped beneath the lintel and stopped, his hand still on the edge of the door.

"Ilyr."

The name came out so quietly that Tavian almost missed it. Rhauden stared at the open case, and whatever answers Tavian had expected from him would plainly have to wait. He looked as shocked to find Ilyr alive as Tavian had been.

Tavian shut the door behind him and put the bar back in place.