November became December the way months became each other in this compound — not marked specifically, just noticed, the cold arriving properly, the river doing the thing it did in December that was different from November, the light changing in ways that Darius had been narrating to Rowan for years and that Rowan now narrated back to whoever was near, with the specific authority of a seven-year-old who had absorbed a great deal of river information and considered herself an authority.
The second burial work continued.
Neva's structural changes were being implemented carefully — the separation of finding from offering, the advisory structure being built from Wren and Senna and Fenna's involvement, the reopened conversations with early joiners. Not complete. Not fixed. Moving, the way the
