V.

The Meal at Table Room is already lively when I climb through the hatch. My wife has laid out the bowls and plates in their usual order, and the boys are speaking excitedly over one another.

“—and then the instructor said if you squeeze too hard you’ll—”

“That’s not what he said at all, what he said was—”

“You should’ve seen Nokweed when the crow landed—”

“Landed where?” says Nokweed. “There was no crow.”

My wife glances up from the pot and smiles wearily. “Well, there he is at last.”

“Evening,” I say, taking my seat. My wife and I exchange a brief handshake across the table.

“So?” Diesel asks immediately. “How was the shot?”

“Clean,” I reply. “Very clean. Your brother handled the rifle well today.”

Nokweed pretends not to hear this and continues buttering his bread with monastic concentration.

“You missed the baker’s cart this afternoon,” my wife says. “They finally had the good rye again.”

“I smelled it on the road. We were in a hurry.”

“Did you remember the jjaœrk milk?” asks Diesel.

The table goes quiet for a moment.

“No,” I say.

My wife closes her eyes briefly. “I knew it.”

“You said you would,” says Nokweed.

“I said I would try.”

“Well now we’ll all have to drink water again tomorrow morning,” Diesel mutters.

“I like water,” says Nokweed.

“You don’t,” Diesel replies. “You just say that because you spilled the last of the milk on Sunday.”

“I did not spill it.”

“You absolutely did.”

My wife sighs and begins ladling stew into the bowls. “If either of you spills anything tonight, you will clean the ladder yourself.”

“Even the Sanctuary ladder?” Diesel asks.

“Especially the Sanctuary ladder.”

The boys fall silent at this, though Nokweed smiles faintly. “School was fine,” he says suddenly. “We start midterms tomorrow.”

“What—already?” I say.

“That’s what I said,” my wife replies. “But apparently the calendar has been revised. Again.”

“Math first,” Diesel says.

“Algebra,” corrects Nokweed.

“Same thing.”

“No, it’s not—there’s geometry, trigonometry, and then calculus, linear—”

“Did you study?” I ask.

Nokweed shrugs. Diesel starts chanting the latest Battle Hymn while simultaneously trying to steal bread from his brother’s plate.

“Did you remember the barley stalks, at least?” my wife asks over the grating notes. “The Rainwater Room was dripping all day onto your bed, you know.”

“I forgot,” I admit.

“Of course.”

To no one in particular, Nokweed begins explaining the difference between a steady breath and a steady finger while Diesel interrupts to describe the crow that he insists was an omen. Both are speaking at once now, neither listening.

“It was practically standing on his boot,” Diesel finally shouts. “It’s a sign from Deus!”

“That’s not what happened,” Nokweed says, shaking his head slowly.

My wife tries to ask about the midterm schedule, but the question is immediately swallowed by a discussion about the neighbour’s gyøat, which has apparently escaped again, and about how the lamplighter nearly set fire to the Central Sculpture Garden last night. Someone mentions Jerry, though no one is certain which part of the hedge she’s been sleeping in lately.

“She’ll come around eventually,” I say. “This can’t go on forever.”

Eventually the room grows quieter. For a few minutes there is only the sound of spoons against pottery and the low creak of the ladder shaft as the evening wind moves through the house.

Then the ladder begins to rattle louder.

I glance up in time to see Erwan Bergot descending briskly into the Meal at Table Room. He is wearing a fine set of Linen Pyjamas, a recent gift for his decades of loyal military service to the Kingdom. He’s a short, stocky man, but as agile as any pürfrottyr you’d hunt in the wild. In typical army fashion, the crown of his head is perfectly shaved, while a ring of long, thinning blonde hair dangles around the back and sides.

It occurs to me that I have never known his first name. He has worn the title of Erwan for so long that it now suits him better than any name bestowed at birth.

“Evening,” he says, saluting each of us in turn.

“Evening, Erwan,” reply the boys in unison, standing to attention.

I return the salute but remain seated.

“You may be seated,” he says to the boys.

My wife grows suddenly quiet and studies her plate.

Erwan places a gentle hand at the base of her neck and leans down. “Now, now—don’t tell me you’re still upset about earlier. I truly meant nothing by it.”

For a moment her expression remains inscrutable. Then the corners of her mouth lift slightly, betraying her. She’s always been the sort whose face reveals more than it hides. Finally, she rolls her eyes—mostly at herself—and gives in. “No,” she sighs, smiling. “I guess I’m just feeling a little… off today. Tired, more than anything.”

“Well, I’m pleased to hear it,” Erwan says softly, kneading the back of her neck in firm circles. “Nothing spoils a good meal like tension between friends.”

She leans her head back and closes her eyes; her shoulders drop and a soft moan escapes as she relaxes into his touch.

“Now,” he says brightly, “what’s on tonight’s menu?”

As he releases his grip, she reaches up and gives his arm a gentle squeeze.

I slide the bread basket toward him. “You’ve come at a good time,” I say. “Dinner was exquisite but we were just about to start the best part—dessert.”

He gives me a curt smile, then pulls up a chair beside Nokweed.

“So,” he says to the boy, reaching for a buttered bun, “how’d you fare today? Did you remember what I told you? Tension on the trigger between breaths and all that?”

I watch Nokweed’s face as he considers the question. Finally, he says, with perfect composure, “I killed my father exactly as you taught me to.”

Erwan nods once. “Good. And the recoil?”

“Minimal.”

“Breath?”

“Steady.”

Erwan shifts slightly in his chair. “Tomorrow will be Diesel’s turn once more.”

Diesel straightens.

“The Conductor will be in attendance,” he adds.

My wife pauses with her cup halfway to her lips. “The Conductor? You’re serious?”

“A rare honour.”

She glances at me. For a moment there is something like pride in her expression. “You didn’t say—did you know?”

“I had been informed,” I reply. “I meant to tell you.”

“You forget many things,” she says.

Erwan folds his hands. “In any case, there is no need to concern ourselves. The procedure is simple. Clean, efficient. It almost always goes off without a hitch.”

“I would like to review it again,” I say. “If there is time.”

Erwan waves this away. “No need. You have only to lie still in the chamber. Diesel and I will go over the sequence together this evening.”

Diesel nods eagerly.

Nokweed has already begun clearing the table. He stacks the bowls with care, threads them into the carrying sling, and lowers them one by one through the central shaft before following.

My wife rises. “I’m tired.”

We stand. She takes my hand briefly across the table and gives it a curt shake. “Goodnight,” she says.

“Goodnight.”

She leans over Erwan and he kisses her lightly on the lips. “I’ll join you later,” he murmurs. “Promise I won’t wake you.”

She gently taps his smooth head then climbs the ladder to her bedroom.

Erwan lingers a moment longer, then turns to Diesel. “Come,” he says. Without another word, they leave the Table and descend together.

The room grows quiet. All I hear is the soft rhythm of Nokweed washing dishes and the yarnflängyrr growing rowdy in Jerry’s room above.

We did not eat dessert.

Later, I lie awake in my room, staring at the ceiling. The rainwater has begun to seep through again; I forgot the barley stalks. A drop gathers, swells, and falls. It lands in the center of the wound in my chest. I watch the next one form.

I’m thinking about the gas. There is a particular stillness to it, a sort of peace. I try to focus on that. I do not dwell on the rest. The panic. The noise it makes in the throat. The way the body resists, even when it has repeatedly been told to lie still.

I rehearse the position. Another drop falls.