The knock came exactly forty minutes after Ren had finally sat down with a cup of something Zephyr insisted was "not quite coffee, but functionally identical."
He opened the door to find Lia standing there with an armful of decorative pillows so tall she had to peer around the side of the stack to see him, a rolled-up tapestry balanced precariously under one arm, and an expression that dared him to say a single word about any of it.
"Don't," she said preemptively.
"I haven't said anything."
"You were about to."
"I was about to ask how you got past the Water Gardens' distance from here without dropping something."
Lia's face did something complicated — pride warring with the honest admission that she had, in fact, dropped several things along the way. "I only lost one pillow in the fountain. It's fine. It'll dry."
Ren stepped back to let her through, and Zephyr's glow brightened with obvious delight at the prospect of a second guest to fuss over.
