Chapter 44: The Geometry of Hearthstones
The morning after Lyra's pronouncement dawned clear and soft, the sea a placid sheet of hammered silver under a peach-streaked sky. The cottage, which had felt like a fragile raft adrift on a night of monumental change, now felt grounded. The "ugly bird" had been accepted, and in that acceptance, had become a totem. They were no longer three people and a secret; they were a unit of four.
The day began with a new protocol.
Kaelen, moving with a quiet precision that was his version of joy, prepared a breakfast of seared salt-fish and toasted oatcakes. He arranged four wooden plates in a perfect square on the table. Four cups. Four place-settings of carved whalebone cutlery Finn had traded for last season. The symmetry was militant, and profoundly tender.
