Retirement Was Wonderful

Wren reached for the empty bowl.

I put a paw over the edge.

"May I keep that?"

She looked startled.

"The bowl? Of course. It's only an old one."

"I like it."

Nora leaned against her mother's knee.

"Bunny likes the flowers."

There were three painted flowers near the rim, worn almost colorless by years of washing.

"Yes," I said. "The flowers."

Seth didn't ask anything until our visitors had left.

Then he sat on the rug beside me.

"You knew her?"

"A long time ago."

He looked at the bowl.

"Does she remember?"

"No."

"Is that difficult?"

I thought about Mara's house and the broken latch. Then I thought about Nora asleep in her mother's arms, being carried down the stairs toward a home that was still standing.

"Less difficult than not finding her at all."

Seth nodded.

He took the bowl to the sink, washed it gently, and put it beside my cushion.

That night, I woke when he left for work.

He tried to step quietly, but his ankle hadn't recovered completely.

At the door, he paused to adjust the bandage beneath his sock.

"You're going back downstairs?" I asked.

"Only to eight. Aldric has the lower floors."

"Take the lift."

He smiled.

"I will."

After he left, I looked across the street.

The entrance light burned above an empty patch of stone.

A replacement guard stood inside the glass doors, checking a radio. Another joined him carrying coffee.

They were good people. So were the ones below.

I hadn't enjoyed watching them discover how hard my old job could become.

The following afternoon, Aldric came to visit.

He brought roast duck, braised beef, and a paper bag full of warm bread.

"Did Martha send you?" I asked.

"She sent the food. I sent myself."

He sat on the floor beside the window.

For a dragon, he made a remarkably poor attempt at looking casual.

"How are the wards?"

"Repaired."

"The guards?"

"Recovering."

"The prisoners?"

"Asking whether you've unpacked permanently."

"Tell them I haven't."

"I did. They didn't enjoy it."

I opened the duck.

He watched me take the first bite, then said, "Will you come back?"

"Retirement is wonderful."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the beginning of one."

He settled against the sofa.

"Go on."

"I wake up when I like. I eat at the soup shop. Nobody brings me a binder. I spent yesterday afternoon moving between two windows."

"Which was better?"

"The first. I came back."

He smiled, then looked toward the Bureau.

"You can do all of that while you're working."

"Apparently not. There were complaints."

"There won't be those complaints again."

I pulled another piece from the duck.

"You could promise many things."

"I could."

He let the silence remain instead of filling it with benefits.

Outside, two students hurried toward the tram stop. One dropped a book, and the other went back for it.

The world was full of small kindnesses nobody wrote into a report.

Aldric rubbed a fresh scale at his wrist.

"I should have told them more," he said.

"You told them not to let me go hungry."

"I made you sound like a problem to be managed."

I looked up.

He held my gaze.

"For eight hundred years, you let our people do their jobs without fearing the next thing beneath them. I never made certain they understood that."

"I didn't want worshippers at the gate."

"Neither did I. But there was room between worship and ignorance. I left them in the wrong place."

I considered that while I chewed.

"Yes," I said.

He accepted it.

Then he reached into his coat and brought out a little packet.

An iron screw lay inside.

"From the school wall," he said. "The head teacher asked us to keep the damaged section until the inspection was finished. It's been replaced now."

I looked at the metal.

"Why bring it to me?"

"Because the wall is standing. The children went back today. I thought you might like something from a place that was repaired."

He put the packet beside the painted bowl.

I didn't speak for a while.

Aldric looked away, allowing that too.

"You know more than I thought," I said eventually.

"Wren told Rowan you thanked her for lunch as though she had given you something much larger."

He glanced at the bowl.

"I haven't asked her anything else."

"Good."

"I won't."

I pushed a piece of duck toward him.

He took it.

We ate beside the window while the afternoon softened around the buildings.

"There will be more children," he said at last. "More people who don't know what's underneath the street."

"I know."

"I can reinforce the doors. I can stay awake longer. I can hire better staff. I'm doing those things."

He looked down at me.

"But when you're there, some doors never need to be tested. I'd like that chance for them."

I thought of the little hexlings asking to escape before the lower wards opened.

Seth's burnt sleeve.

Nora's empty shoe beneath the slide.

"I'm not promising tonight," I said.

"All right."

He closed the containers, leaving the food with me, and stood.

At the door he paused.

"Martha has chicken tomorrow."

"She has chicken most days."

"She asked me to mention it."

After he left, I carried the bowl to the window.

Across the street, Rowan came outside with a broom. He swept the place where my cushion used to lie, then stopped with the broom resting against his leg.

Seth arrived for his shift. They spoke for a moment, both looking at the empty stones.

Neither looked toward my window.

They weren't performing for me.

That made it harder.

The next morning, I rolled my bedding.

Seth found me at the door.

He looked at the bundle, then at me.

"Want a lift?"

"I can walk."

"I know."

I let him carry it anyway.

Rowan met us at the entrance and forgot to finish whatever he had been saying into his phone.

"Pip?"

"The sun's better here after noon."

He knelt, smiling so hard that his eyes filled.

Behind him, Martha emerged with a chicken leg.

Bram pretended not to see us and put a paper bag beside the door.

Seth unrolled my bedding.

Under the clean cushion were three warming patches.

I stepped onto it and turned around twice.

The painted bowl settled beside my paws.

Somewhere below, a voice shouted, "She's at the entrance!"

Then eighteen floors of chains went still.