The first time Lutia Windgarden picked up a snow shovel, she spent a while determining which end humans considered the front.
The tool consisted of a wooden handle slightly taller than her shoulder and a broad iron plate. Several small chips marred the edge of the plate, and two loops of coarse cloth had been wrapped around the handle, their surfaces polished bright by the hands of many different people.
She raised the iron plate into the air.
Lorne glanced at her.
“Wrong way.”
Lutia turned the snow shovel upside down.
“How about now?”
“Now you can use it.”
“It has no markings for a fixed amount of snow.”
“No.”
“And no side flanges to control the direction.”
“No.”
“What if the snow slides off both sides?”
“Shovel it again.”
Lutia looked down at the snow shovel.
This design seemed almost deliberately intended to slow the work down.
The temporary staging area on North Street had been set up outside a closed dye works. The Disaster Affairs Office had built worktables out of two carts and several planks. Street maps, lists of the injured, and wooden placards in different colors were spread across them. People in dark gray coats went in and out without pause, hanging red danger placards in front of dangerous buildings and handing white placards to residents who had completed their initial registration.
More than a dozen snow shovels, poles, ropes, and burlap sacks filled with sand were piled in the middle of the street.
Greta stood beside the worktable with a cup of hot soup in one hand and marked the map with the other.
“North Street is divided into three sections. The first clears the passageway, the second moves water-damaged supplies, and the third handles the snow piled on the roofs. No entering a house without a red danger placard. No going onto a roof without ropes and someone watching from the ground.”
She looked at Lutia.
“Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Repeat it.”
Lutia recited the three sections of work in order, then added the conditions prohibiting entry into houses and roof work.
Greta nodded.
“Good. At least this time it wasn’t page twenty-seven.”
Lorne was sorting the record sheets nearby. He did not look up at that.
Lutia took the snow shovel assigned to her.
“Which section am I responsible for?”
“The first.”
“How wide does the passageway need to be?”
“Wide enough for two carts to pass each other.”
“Where should the snow go?”
“Both sides of the street.”
“There are drains on both sides.”
“They’re frozen over.”
“They’ll clog when the snow melts.”
Greta finally looked up from the map.
“You know where the drains are?”
“I can sense where the underground water flow is less obstructed.”
“Without magic?”
“Sensing doesn’t count as spellcasting.”
Lorne said from beside her, “By the elves’ definition, it doesn’t. Under the temporary restrictions, however, all sensing related to the snowfall has to be reported first.”
Lutia turned toward him.
“I just reported it.”
“So now it can be written down.”
He added a line to the paper.
Greta tossed Lutia a piece of chalk.
“Mark the drains and avoid them when piling the snow. Don’t dig them out, and don’t melt anything.”
“I didn’t say I was going to melt them.”
“Your face did.”
Lutia looked down at the chalk in her hand.
She was not sure how humans could read a plan that had not yet been carried out from someone’s expression.
Greta had already turned away to listen to another employee’s report.
The first section of North Street extended from the dye works to Clockmaker’s Alley, a distance of fewer than two hundred paces. Lutia stood at the starting point and watched the others use their snow shovels for a while.
First, they pushed the iron plate beneath the packed snow, then lifted it and flung the snow toward the side of the street.
The motion itself was not difficult.
The problem was that it was too slow.
She tried to scoop up her first shovelful.
Only after the iron plate plunged into the snow did she realize that the layer beneath had been packed solid by footsteps, its edge caught on the ice. She applied more force. The shovel suddenly slid forward, and she stumbled along with it.
Lorne caught her by the elbow.
“You don’t have to go all the way down in one scoop.”
Lutia regained her balance.
“If I don’t reach the bottom, there will still be snow underneath.”
“Clear the top first. Deal with the bottom afterward.”
“That means doing the same spot twice.”
“Usually more than twice.”
She glanced at him.
Lorne had already let go. He bent to gather several scattered record sheets back onto the clipboard.
“Do you really clear an entire city this way?”
“Not only this way. We also use boards, ox carts, pulleys, and people.”
“If you let me cast one second-circle wind resonance, all I’d have to do is define the boundaries of this street—”
“No.”
“I haven’t finished.”
“The result won’t change just because you explain it more completely.”
Lutia tightened her grip on the snow shovel.
“You ask me to help with recovery, but you won’t let me use the fastest method.”
“Right now, speed isn’t the only thing that matters.”
“Then what does?”
Lorne lifted his chin toward the side of the street.
Several workers were carrying a soaked rug out of a house. The rug had absorbed melted snow and sagged under its own weight, dirty water dripping from its edges onto the snow. The homeowner stood in the doorway, clutching a cracked wooden box to his chest.
“First, look at what every action might affect,” Lorne said.
“I can sense things.”
“Can you feel whether there’s a sack of flour under the snow?”
Lutia did not answer.
“Can you feel which loose roof tile is about to fall?”
“No.”
“Can you tell who’s standing behind a door jammed shut by snow?”
“No.”
“Then start by doing things in ways you can see.”
Lutia pushed the snow shovel into the drift again.
This time she scooped up only the looser layer on top.
The snow flew to the side of the street, revealing a gray-white, compacted layer of ice beneath.
She shoveled again.
On the third scoop, the iron plate struck something hard, producing a sound that did not belong to stone.
Lutia stopped. Using the edge of the shovel, she slowly brushed away the snow around it and uncovered a strip of dark blue cloth.
It was a glove.
She bent down and picked it up.
The glove was small, with a patch of worn-thin leather sewn into the palm. A crooked goose had been embroidered at the wrist in red thread. There was no hand inside, only packed snow.
“Lost property,” Lorne said.
He fetched a bamboo basket from beside the tool cart.
Several things were already inside: a broken wooden comb, an iron kettle missing its handle, two letters reduced to soggy pulp, and a toy horse missing a wheel.
Lutia put the glove in it.
“Will someone come looking for it?”
“Possibly.”
“What if no one does?”
“After disaster registration is complete, it goes to the lost-and-found office.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know.”
“Humans often don’t know how long things take.”
“Especially after a disaster.”
Lutia gripped the snow shovel again and cleared several more steps.
The second thing she dug up was a basket of apples frozen solid.
The bamboo basket had split, scattering the fruit through the snow. A transparent layer of frost coated their skins. When Lutia touched one, brown juice immediately seeped from a frost-cracked spot.
“They’re still edible,” she said.
A worker nearby shook his head.
“Frozen like that, they’ll all rot when they thaw.”
“They can be kept cold.”
“They were meant to be sold, not preserved until next year.”
Lutia looked at the apples.
Yesterday, she had called down snow to preserve food in the market that had not had time to be stored underground.
She crouched and picked up the apples one by one, putting them back into the broken basket.
The worker watched her for a moment.
“Don’t bother. Put them straight on the loss cart.”
“There’s still room in the basket.”
“The bottom’s split.”
Lutia looked down. The apples she had just put inside were rolling back onto the snow through the crack.
She picked them up again.
Lorne handed her an empty burlap sack from behind.
“Put them in here.”
Lutia accepted the sack.
“How do we register these?”
“Food loss. Fruit. Quantity pending estimate.”
“Can’t we count them one by one?”
“We can. But there are three more streets ahead of us.”
She looked at the apples in her hands.
“If the quantity isn’t accurate, how can they receive compensation?”
“The owner reports it first. Then we compare it with purchasing and inventory records.”
“What if there are no records?”
“Then it gets more complicated.”
“If humans need paperwork for everything, why are there still no records?”
Lorne placed the last apple in the sack.
“Because needing paperwork doesn’t mean everyone has time to fill it out.”
He wrote down the location.
“And writing something down doesn’t mean anyone will necessarily read it.”
Lutia did not ask anything else.
She carried the sack to the loss cart, then returned to her original position.
When they had cleared the middle of the street, the shovel struck something again.
This time it was a wooden sign.
Ice covered the writing, leaving only half visible.
Lutia wiped away the snow on its surface with her glove.
North Bell Bakery.
The arrow should have pointed toward the corner. Now the sign had broken in two, and the arrow pointed directly at a wall.
“Set it aside for now,” Lorne said. “We’ll have the owner confirm it.”
“Is this Mila’s shop?”
“Yes.”
Lutia looked toward the other end of the street.
A two-story building with pale yellow walls stood there. The sign was gone, leaving only two chains hanging in midair. Part of the rear roof had collapsed, and sacks of flour soaked through with snowmelt were piled outside the front door.
Several people were putting up supports along the eaves.
Mila stood in the doorway. Her shawl had been replaced by an old coat, though flour still dusted her sleeves. She held a ledger in one hand and directed workers to move the damp firewood somewhere drier with the other.
Lutia watched for a while.
“She was in the hearing just now.”
“Yes.”
“She arrived before us.”
“Her shop is here.”
“Didn’t she need to stay in the council hall to finish the paperwork?”
“She finished everything she could.”
“What about disaster registration?”
“That waits until we get there.”
Lutia looked at the road, half cleared already.
“Then we can go first.”
“Clear this section first.”
“But she’s waiting.”
“Other people on North Street are waiting too.”
Lutia turned her gaze back to the snow.
She still could not understand how humans prioritized their work. The person closest at hand was not necessarily handled first, and the building with the heaviest losses did not necessarily go to the front of the line.
All she could do was keep shoveling.
The wooden handle soon made her palms warm.
Elves were lighter than humans, and their bodies were not built for long periods of repeating the same motion. She could use wind to lift a huge boulder, but that did not mean her shoulders were accustomed to bearing the weight of a snow shovel.
Before half an hour had passed, her arms began to ache.
She changed her grip.
The iron plate of the shovel caught in the ice again.
She heaved upward. The plate did not move, but her palm slipped off the wooden handle.
“Take off your glove,” Lorne said.
“It’s cold outside.”
“The glove is too slippery.”
“My hands are already cold.”
“That’s why you need to hold on more firmly.”
Lutia removed her right glove.
The rough wooden handle immediately pressed into her palm.
She gripped it again. This time, it did not slip.
“Why don’t human tools deal with these problems before they’re made?”
“Because the people who design tools usually aren’t the people who use them.”
“Then why don’t the people who use them change them?”
“Because they’re using them.”
Lutia stared at him.
“That’s a cycle.”
“Yes.”
“You know that?”
“Yes.”
“And you still don’t fix it?”
Lorne finished writing a line on the record sheet.
“Welcome to the human world.”
Lutia was not sure whether he was joking.
She kept shoveling.
The original stone surface of the road gradually appeared.
The ice at the bottom was thicker than expected, mixed with mud, splintered wood, and roof tiles that had fallen from above. At one point, an entire row of collapsed fruit crates lay buried beneath the snow. They had to stop and separate the goods that could still be identified, while Lorne recorded the quantities and owners.
Lutia soon realized that clearing snow did not mean simply moving snow away.
Every layer they removed might reveal something else beneath it.
A fallen clothes rack.
A ledger gone soft with water.
A sack of salt already clumped solid.
Three shattered ceramic plates.
A locked wooden chest.
Two drainpipes that had fallen from some unknown roof.
And a small gray bird, frozen stiff.
When Lutia lifted it from the snow, its wings were still spread in the position they had frozen in.
Lorne crouched beside her.
“Is it dead?”
Lutia touched the bird lightly with one fingertip.
“There’s still a very weak life resonance echo.”
“Can you save it?”
She did not answer at once.
A small resonance affecting only a single living creature fell under first-circle resonance, but Greta’s restrictions did not allow her to make that decision on her own.
Lutia looked toward the worktable.
Greta stood a dozen or so steps away, checking roof supports with two workers.
“I need to apply for permission,” Lutia said.
Lorne glanced at the bird in her palm.
“I’ll ask.”
“It may not be able to wait.”
Lorne did not argue. He immediately hurried over to Greta.
Lutia knelt in the snow and cupped the little bird in both hands. A trace of warmth remained in its chest, but it was rapidly fading.
Just a little.
She did not need to change the season or touch the wind or moisture. She could transfer the warmth from her palms to the bird and slow the loss of body heat.
Lutia did not move.
Lorne returned quickly.
“Approved,” he said. “The bird’s body only. You may not draw heat from the surroundings. No more than thirty breaths.”
“Who’s counting?”
“I am.”
Lutia nodded and focused her awareness between her palms.
The request: delay the loss of body heat.
The spell boundary: this bird’s body.
Restitution: stop immediately once it could produce heat on its own again.
The warmth in her palms seeped into its feathers. Lutia’s fingertips quickly grew colder.
At first, the bird did not react.
Lorne counted the breaths quietly beside her.
On the twelfth, one of the bird’s claws moved.
On the nineteenth, its chest gave a faint rise and fall.
On the twenty-sixth, it suddenly opened its eyes and began struggling in Lutia’s hands.
“Stop,” Lorne said.
Lutia immediately withdrew the resonance.
The bird did not fly away. It only huddled in her palm, trembling.
A nearby worker brought over an empty wooden box and lined it with dry cloth.
“Let it warm up before you release it,” he said.
She nodded.
“This time, nothing went wrong,” she said to Lorne.
“Because you asked first.”
“And because I already knew what to do.”
“Knowing what to do doesn’t mean you don’t have to ask.”
Lutia looked at the bird in the wooden box.
She had intended to argue, but in the end she only put her right glove back on.
By noon, they had finally cleared the first section of road.
Two carts slowly passed each other in the middle of the narrow lane. Their wheels scraped against each other, but neither got stuck. Greta had a passage marker hung at the street entrance, then moved over the wooden sign for the next section of work.
Lutia thought they would at least take a short break.
Greta handed her a cold, hard piece of bread.
“Eat while you walk.”
“This morning you told me to drink hot soup.”
“That was this morning.”
“Do human eating rules change with the time of day?”
“They change depending on how busy we are.”
“We’re busy now?”
Greta looked down the length of North Street.
The snow on the roofs was still piling up.
“What do you think?”
Lutia took a bite of bread.
The surface was so hard she could barely chew it.
She was considering whether she could warm it slightly with her body heat when Greta shoved a safety rope into her arms.
“North Bell Bakery.”
Lutia raised her head.
Mila was watching them from in front of the shop.
“The snow on the rear of the roof has exceeded the supports’ load limit,” Greta said. “You and Lorne will complete the damage registration first, then help clear the ground. The workers will handle the roof.”
“I can go up.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve never cleared snow from a roof.”
“I’d never cleared snow from a street before, either.”
“And that’s why you nearly fell over three times, shovel and all.”
“Only twice.”
Lorne said, “I caught you the third time.”
Lutia looked at him.
“That doesn’t count as falling.”
“That’s usually what the person who fell says.”
Greta handed the safety rope to Lorne.
“Get moving.”
The front door of North Bell Bakery would not open all the way.
Several sacks of damp flour were piled behind it, leaving only a gap narrow enough to pass through sideways. As Lutia entered, the hem of her cloak brushed the sacks and immediately picked up a layer of white dust.
The shop was darker than outside.
The counter that should have held bread for sale stood ahead, but half the wooden shelving had fallen over. Broken ceramic jars, wet cloth, and lumps of dough frozen hard were scattered across the floor. Two brick ovens stood against the back wall. Their mouths were completely black, and damp firewood was piled beside them.
The roof had collapsed over the rear workroom.
Snow fell through the gap and piled into a small hill on the kneading table.
Lutia stopped at the doorway instead of going farther in.
Lorne first checked the red danger placard on the wall.
“The rear room is off-limits. We’ll register only the damage we can confirm from outside.”
Mila placed her ledger on the counter.
“Two roof beams are cracked, and the entire rear gutter came down. The west oven’s chimney is cracked, and the east oven took on water. Twenty-six sacks of flour, no more than four usable. The salt, sugar, and yeast haven’t been cleared yet.”
Lorne spread out the form.
“Owned or rented?”
“Owned.”
“When was the roof last repaired?”
“Three years ago.”
“Do you have the contractor’s receipt?”
“Yes. It’s in the cabinet in back.”
Lorne glanced at the workroom sealed off by the red placard.
“Can’t get to it now?”
“Unless you want the roof to fall on your head.”
“Then I’ll mark it as pending.”
Mila continued listing the losses.
She spoke quickly, barely pausing. Lorne interrupted occasionally, asking her to replace “an entire batch” with an exact number, and to separate “it’s all ruined” into what had been confirmed and what still needed confirmation.
Lutia watched the two of them record each item.
“Are both ovens completely unusable?” she asked.
Mila did not look at her.
“Yes.”
“I can inspect the heat flow.”
“No need.”
“It would only be sensing.”
“I said no.”
Lutia paused.
“Knowing where the cracks are would make repairs faster.”
Mila finally looked up.
“Do you think what this place needs most right now is for you to do one more thing faster?”
Lutia looked at her.
“I only wanted to confirm.”
“Then confirm what you can see.”
Mila pointed into the shop.
“That’s the kneading table my husband left behind. It was used for fifteen years. Now one corner is cracked.”
She pointed at the ceramic shards on the floor.
“My daughter made those jars before she left Goosebell City. They weren’t worth much, but broken is broken.”
Finally, she pointed to the gap in the rear roof, where snow continued to fall.
“Yesterday, that was still one whole roof.”
Snowflakes fell through the hole and struck the snow on the table, making almost no sound.
“I’m sorry,” Lutia said.
Mila’s expression did not change.
“I knew you’d say that.”
“I should say it.”
“Then you’ve said it.”
Lutia did not understand.
“You don’t accept it?”
“I heard you.”
“But—”
“Hearing you doesn’t mean I have to make you feel better.”
Lutia’s fingers tightened beneath her cloak.
“I’m not saying it to make myself feel better.”
“Then why are you waiting for me to respond?”
Lutia opened and closed her mouth.
Mila had already pushed the ledger a little closer to Lorne.
“Continue.”
Lorne did not look at Lutia. He only asked, “Average daily output before the bakery closed?”
“Three hundred twenty on ordinary days, more than four hundred on market days.”
“Usable food stores remaining?”
“Does what we delivered to the shelter yesterday count?”
“It counts as transferred, not as a loss.”
“Then less than one day’s supply.”
The two of them continued completing the record.
Lutia stood beside them, hearing nothing but the scratch of the pen across the paper.
She did not wait for Mila to look at her again.
A sudden crack sounded above the roof.
Everyone looked up at once.
Then came another.
Lorne immediately closed the clipboard.
“Out.”
Mila grabbed the ledger first.
Lutia followed them outside.
The eaves over the rear workroom sank another few inches. Snow slid down the tiles and struck the ground in a cloud of white. Workers on the roof shouted for everyone below to move back.
Greta ran over.
“What’s happening?”
“The rear beam may not hold until evening,” Lorne said.
One of the roof workers climbed down the ladder.
“We can’t go across from above anymore. The tiles on the west side have come loose. We need to unload the snow along the edge first, or the whole section will collapse inward.”
“Use a pole?”
“Not at the right angle.”
“A rope?”
“Someone has to get the loop up there.”
Lutia looked at the roof.
“I can use wind to send the rope loop up.”
Greta said immediately, “No.”
“I’d only move the rope.”
“The roof is unstable.”
“Which is why no one can go up.”
“The wind might tear loose tiles away.”
“I can control the strength.”
Mila suddenly spoke from beside them.
“Don’t use magic.”
Lutia turned to her.
“If we don’t, the entire roof could collapse.”
“Then let the workers handle it.”
“They said someone needs to send the rope loop up.”
“There’ll be another way.”
“I am another way.”
“You were another way yesterday too.”
Lutia stopped.
Greta asked the roof worker, “Can you get there from the neighboring roof?”
The worker looked up and estimated the distance.
“We can lay a board across, but first we need to make sure the other roof can bear the weight.”
“Go check.”
Two workers immediately went around to the neighboring alley.
Lutia watched them carry out boards and ladders, knock on the door, and enter to inspect the eaves and beams after the owner opened it.
The snow kept falling.
With every passing moment, the weight on the roof increased.
She could feel the wind moving above the street. With the slightest pull, she could lift the rope loop, carry it over the ridge, and drop it exactly where it needed to go.
She would not even have to touch the tiles.
“Lorne,” she said.
“No.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“The way you’re looking at the roof is the same way you looked when you were about to walk out through the north gate.”
Lutia looked at him.
“You’re judging by my expression again?”
“This time it’s obvious.”
“What if the roof collapses?”
“That’s a risk everyone here is facing together.”
“Mila didn’t ask for it to collapse.”
“She asked you not to use magic.”
“That could cause greater losses.”
“Yes.”
“You know that, and you still intend to do as she says?”
“She knows it’s her roof.”
“But she’s angry.”
“Being angry doesn’t mean she’s lost the ability to decide.”
“What if she decides wrong?”
Lorne looked at her.
“Yesterday, you also thought your decision was right.”
Lutia said nothing more.
In Springturn Forest, if a tree was falling toward a seedling, whoever could stop it would not first ask the seedling for permission. When river water was about to flood a bird’s nest, no one waited for the flock to decide whether the river should be diverted.
She looked at Mila again.
It was her shop, her roof, her broken ovens and ceramic jars.
Mila had never asked her to cast a spell.
The roof workers soon appeared over the neighboring roof.
“It can bear the weight!”
A board was laid between the two buildings.
The workers fastened their safety ropes and climbed step by step onto the neighboring roof, then crouched low and edged along the board toward the bakery. One hooked the rope loop onto the end of a protruding beam, and the people below immediately pulled it taut.
When the first load of snow was dragged down, the entire street filled with white mist.
Then came a second load.
The eaves gave several more alarming cracks, but they did not sink any farther.
Mila continued looking up at the roof.
Lutia walked over to her.
“I won’t ask you again whether you want me to use magic.”
Mila turned to her.
“Is that another apology?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Lutia thought for a moment.
“I heard you say no.”
Mila did not answer.
After a while, she pointed to a long-handled roof rake beside the wall.
“Clear the snow beside the back door.”
“Why?”
“The snow unloaded from the roof blocked the back door again.”
Lutia looked at the newly fallen drift.
It was nearly chest-high.
“All of it?”
“Aren’t you here for recovery?”
Lutia picked up the roof rake.
“Yes.”
Mila walked back inside the shop.
There was no forgiveness, and no thanks.
Only one more task that needed doing.
They worked until the sky grew dark.
The main passage of North Street was finally cleared from Clockmaker’s Alley to the front of the bakery, and the dangerous buildings on both sides received their first round of markings. The blocked back door was opened again, and several sacks of flour that had not been completely soaked were moved to a temporary warehouse.
Lutia’s shoulders ached so badly she could barely lift them.
When she put her gloves back on, a small patch of skin on her palm had rubbed raw. The fabric scraped across the wound, sending a sharp sting through her hand.
Lorne noticed.
“Go to the clinic and get some medicine.”
“No need.”
“That’s a work injury.”
“Elves heal quickly.”
“Greta told me to record your physical condition today.”
“She only said temperature and magic resonance.”
“Now add one more item: scraped palm.”
Lutia looked at him.
“You really put everything into paperwork.”
“Not everything.”
“What doesn’t get included?”
Lorne thought for a moment.
“Usually, whatever we don’t have time to write down.”
He hung the last white placard at the corner.
A Disaster Affairs Office employee lit oil lamps along the street. Their dim yellow light fell across the newly cleared stone, and melted snow slowly trickled through the cracks.
Lutia stood in the middle of North Street and looked back over everything they had accomplished that day.
The passage was not wide, and the snow had not disappeared. It had merely been piled along both sides of the street.
The roofs still had holes. The shops had not reopened. The frozen and cracked water mains had not been repaired.
The glove had gone into the lost-property basket.
The frozen apples had been loaded onto the loss cart.
The gray bird was still in the wooden box lined with dry cloth.
The back door of North Bell Bakery had been opened again, and the roof had temporarily stopped sinking.
“Do we continue tomorrow?” she asked.
Lorne put away the clipboard.
“If the snow doesn’t stop, we continue.”
Lutia looked up.
In the night, snow still drifted from the direction of Longchime Bell Tower.
“At this rate, we’ll never finish clearing it.”
“That’s how it looks right now.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Worrying won’t make the snow decrease.”
“But the passage we cleared today may be covered again tomorrow.”
Lorne looked toward the end of the street.
“Then we clear it again tomorrow.”
Lutia frowned.
“That won’t make the snow stop.”
“No.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because until the snow stops, people still have to walk, eat, move things, and go home.”
Lutia lowered her gaze to the injury on her palm.
Before returning to the temporary lodgings, Lorne took her to the clinic to have her palm cleaned.
By the time they left North Street, all the oil lamps along the way were lit. Snow fell onto the passage they had just cleared, at first only a few scattered white flecks.
When Lutia reached the end of the street and looked back, a thin white layer had already covered the stone.
That night, she slept deeply.
The ache in her shoulders and the sting in her palm woke her several times when she turned over, but unlike the previous night, she did not hear the constant footsteps going back and forth in the corridor of the Border Reception House.
Before dawn, hurried knocking sounded downstairs.
By the time Lorne opened the door, Lutia had already put on her cloak.
A Disaster Affairs Office employee stood outside, snow covering his hat and shoulders.
“North Street is blocked again,” he panted. “The passage we cleared last night is completely gone.”
Lutia went to the window.
Everything beyond the glass was gray-white.
The roofs, streetlamps, and road surface exposed yesterday had all been covered again. The snow walls piled along both sides of North Street leaned inward. The passage that had been wide enough for two carts to pass now amounted to only an uneven shallow trench.
An entire day of labor, ropes, carts, and snow shovels had left almost no trace.
Behind her, Lorne asked, “Can you still feel the cycle?”
Lutia closed her eyes.
The cold was still flowing underground along the street.
More steadily than yesterday, and deeper.
“Yes.”
“Has it weakened?”
“No.”
She opened her eyes.
The snowfall was steady, almost rhythmic, filling in inch by inch the places they had cleared yesterday.
Lutia closed her unhealed hand.
“Are we using shovels again today?”
Lorne picked up his coat from beside the wall.
“First, let’s see what’s buried under the snow this time.”