The quay wanted a story. We gave it a lead wrap and a pickle crock.
Sable took both before the horns finished. Elizabeth went with her. I did what I had been told and walked the compound like a man checking locks, not like a banner taking air.
The first sleeping room was clean. The second smelled of soap and old smoke. The third, the one from the barge's picture, had a shutter that did not sit true. Not broken. Shifted. Someone had stood on the inner ledge and looked out, then looked in, then left the wood a finger off so the next visit would be quieter.
Vale found the thread on the sill. Pale. Waxed. The kind of marker a fixer uses when a room has been priced.
"Not a listener," she said. "A window."
"A window is enough if a child needs a likeness," I said.
