Moonbound
Names filled the circle like water, then like a wall.
Silas’s attention never blinked. He had learned early how not to blink when someone else’s pain asked to be counted. “Enough anecdotes,” he said—pleasant as a church bell in a city that hates sermons. “Stone does not care for stories.”
“Stone,” Maera said, finally lifting her eyes to him, “is stories that outlived their furniture.”
Lucien’s hand moved from the ordinary floor to the groove’s blunt lip. The cut in the stone was old; his fingers found places where chisels had misstepped and been forgiven. The house seemed to lean closer with its rafters.