## Chapter 259 — The Last Key The apartment looked larger after Matsuda’s boxes had gone and less capable of holding a person. Nothing remained against the long wall except three pale rectangles where shelves and framed photographs had protected the wallpaper from several years of light. The curtains were open. Morning crossed the bare floor without meeting a table, plant or stack of books, and every small sound returned from the walls with an unfamiliar second edge. Kanno knelt beside the borrowed futon and forced the last of its air toward the open end of the storage bag. She had arrived on Friday with the bedding in a taxi and an assurance that collecting it would not become an international operation. Matsuda had slept upon it for three nights and folded it badly each morning. “It has expanded through use,” she said. Matsuda stood in the kitchenette with one mug, one towel and a packet of tea he had forgotten to pack. “That is what bedding does when someone refuses the original compression method.” “You were given the method.” “I was given a diagram in which the futon became half its actual width through confidence.” Kanno pushed down harder. The bag resisted her with no interest in the move to Tokyo or the fact that the room had reached its final morning. Isha crouched beside her, drew the two edges together and held them while Kanno closed the zip. The futon submitted at once. Kanno looked at the bag, then at Isha. “You could have allowed me one more attempt.” “You had already proved commitment.” Thomas checked the cupboard above the sink. It contained no food, though one loose grain of rice remained in the back corner as if refusing the inventory. The refrigerator stood unplugged and open, its shelves clean. The last rubbish bag had gone downstairs. Matsuda’s plant, repotted into a lighter inner container, waited near the genkan inside a cardboard sleeve with handwritten warnings on three sides. Matsuda had kept the old mug. It stood on the counter beside his backpack, white ceramic with a faded blue university mark and a chip near the handle. The good knife was wrapped inside a tea towel. The café photograph of the four of them occupied the front sleeve of a document folder. Nothing in the selection had been presented as symbolic; each item had simply survived every category that might have removed it. Thomas closed the cupboard. “That is everything.” Matsuda checked the room once more from the centre. His gaze moved through the pale rectangles, the empty window ledge and the place where the plant had stood. He had done this twice already. The third inspection found nothing new and did not become unnecessary because of it. “The key return is at ten,” he said. “The train is after noon. There is time.” Kanno sat back on her heels. “You have said that four times since eight.” “I am preventing urgency.” “You are describing the clock until it becomes nervous.” Matsuda adjusted his glasses and declined to defend the method. Isha lifted the compressed futon bag. Thomas took Matsuda’s small suitcase, leaving the plant and backpack to their owner. They passed through the apartment in a line that would not need to return. At the door, Matsuda stopped with his hand on the frame. No one spoke. The flat had already received the practical goodbye through cleaning, tape, final meter photographs and the removal company’s forms. A second ceremony would not make the departure more complete. Matsuda pulled the door shut and turned the key. The lock sounded ordinary. --- The property desk occupied a narrow ground-floor office two streets away. Matsuda returned two keys and a plastic access tag, signed beneath the final inspection record and accepted that the deposit calculation would arrive later. The staff member placed the keys in a divided tray without pausing over which home they had opened. Outside, Matsuda looked at his empty hand. Kanno had the compressed futon over one shoulder. Isha carried nothing now; Thomas still had the suitcase because Matsuda’s plant required both arms whenever the pavement narrowed. They walked toward the station through late-spring light and the first thin heat of the day. The city had continued arranging itself for people who were not leaving. Bicycles crossed side streets. A delivery worker stacked crates outside a restaurant. The trees had moved beyond blossom into full new green, and the remaining petals had been swept from most doorways. Matsuda named two shops he had already visited for the last time, then objected when Kanno asked whether he expected them to preserve the exact window displays until his return. “I expect evidence,” he said. “Preservation would be excessive.” “You requested reports on a restaurant sign.” “Occasional confirmation. Not continuous surveillance.” Thomas walked beside him while the women followed half a step behind with the futon. The suitcase wheels clicked over every join in the paving. Matsuda’s Tokyo ticket remained on his phone. His new apartment key waited at the other end of the journey. Between the two, there was no useful problem for Thomas to solve. At the station they found the correct entrance, then stood aside from the people moving toward trains. Matsuda transferred the plant to the top of the suitcase and discovered that the cardboard sleeve blocked the handle. Isha removed one side of the sleeve along its fold and retied the cord lower. The adjustment took less than a minute and gave everyone something legitimate to watch. When it was done, Matsuda tested the handle. “That is better.” “You may report the improvement to the company,” Isha said. “I will conceal the defect unless they attempt to charge me for the plant.” Kanno put the futon down. She had carried it from the property office despite two offers from Isha and one from Thomas, perhaps because it was the only part of the morning that remained hers to complete. Her fingers stayed around the strap after the weight reached the floor. “Message when you are inside the apartment,” she said. “Not when you reach Tokyo. Inside.” Matsuda nodded. “I will.” “And send the kitchen.” “That request has already been made by three people.” “It remains outstanding.” The exchange ended there. Kanno looked as if she had intended another sentence and found that every available version sounded larger than the relationship required in public. She stepped forward and straightened the collar of Matsuda’s light jacket, though it was not folded. Thomas offered his hand. Matsuda looked at it for a moment, then ignored the shape of the gesture and drew Thomas into a brief embrace instead. One arm had to work around the plant sleeve. Matsuda’s hand tightened once against Thomas’s back before he released him. “Eighteen months,” Thomas said when they separated. “Written,” Matsuda replied. Isha embraced him next. Her height allowed Matsuda’s face to disappear briefly beside her pale hair. She held him with deliberate gentleness and released him before the plant tilted. Kanno did not hug him. She placed one hand against his upper arm and kept it there while she said, “Go before Thomas remembers food.” “I have lunch.” Matsuda raised the paper bag Thomas had supplied despite the previous dinner restriction. “One meal. No accumulation model.” Thomas denied having created one. No one believed him enough to reopen the argument. Matsuda moved toward the gates. He looked back once after the ticket accepted him, lifted one hand and continued until the crowd replaced him. Kanno remained facing the place where he had disappeared. The compressed futon sat beside her like luggage for a journey she was not taking. --- Kanno said she would go home. She said it again outside the station, where their routes divided. Her apartment lay in another direction; Thomas and Isha’s home required a local connection and a walk. The futon could fit in a taxi, and the day had not yet reached lunch. Isha ignored the route map. “Do you want to?” Kanno’s answer took too long for a timetable question. “Eventually.” “Come with us first.” Isha left the invitation where it was. Kanno glanced at Thomas, checking that it belonged to the household as well as to Isha. Thomas took the futon bag. “The flexible room has already accepted worse objects.” “It accepted our camping equipment under protest,” Isha said. “This has an intended use.” Kanno let go of the strap. They returned to 202 with Matsuda already moving south at a speed none of them could feel from the local train. The journey home contained little conversation. Kanno answered two work messages, deleted a third without replying and spent several minutes examining the shared chat, where Matsuda’s last contribution remained a complaint about rice. In the flat, the futon fitted along the flexible-room wall after Thomas moved one storage box and Isha checked that the door still opened fully. Kanno left her bag beside it, then followed them into the LDK without putting her coat back on. Thomas opened the refrigerator. The available lunch consisted of cold rice, eggs, spring onions, half a cabbage, miso soup from the previous evening and enough pickles to make any larger plan look dishonest. “I can make fried rice,” he said. Kanno sat at the table. “You are not allowed to turn this into departure food.” “I am proposing the fastest use of cold rice.” “That is how it begins.” Thomas looked to Isha for procedural support. She inspected the rice and said, “One pan. No special ingredients. He may continue.” The meal took fifteen minutes. Thomas cooked the rice with egg, cabbage and spring onion, reheated the soup and left the pickles in their storage container. Kanno watched the absence of ceremony as closely as she had watched the dinner a week earlier. They ate near the open balcony door. Warm air moved the curtain by a few centimetres. Somewhere in the court below, metal struck concrete twice and stopped. The building held weekday quiet around them, though the holiday period had left several residents at home. Kanno ate half her bowl before saying, “I thought I had prepared better.” Neither Thomas nor Isha asked what she meant. The train, the empty apartment and the futon in the next room had already supplied the subject. “I knew the date for months,” she continued. “There were lists. He complained every time I added something to one, then followed most of it. The job is good. The agreement is better than the first offer. Tokyo is not another world.” Her spoon remained inside the rice. “I expected the morning to feel sad. I did not expect it to feel incorrect.” Isha moved to the chair beside her. “Which part?” “The part after.” Kanno looked toward her phone. “There is nothing wrong. That is making it difficult to choose where the feeling belongs.” Thomas collected his empty soup bowl and carried it to the kitchen, leaving the next answer to Isha. Kanno’s voice remained audible, though softer. She said that Matsuda had never occupied most of her days. They did not message constantly. They could go a week without meeting and then spend an hour objecting to each other’s plans. His move altered no promise she had depended upon. She could visit. He would return. Isha listened without improving any of those facts. “I keep thinking of things to tell him,” Kanno said. “Then I remember I can still tell him, and that should solve it. It does not.” “No,” Isha said. “The telling will happen after he has left the place where the thing belongs.” Kanno pressed her lips together. Her eyes filled too quickly for the expression she had prepared. She turned her face toward the balcony, irritated by the betrayal more than ashamed of it. Isha placed a tissue on the table within reach and did not touch her immediately. Kanno took the tissue. “That was an annoyingly accurate sentence.” “I can make a worse one.” “Please do.” Isha considered. “The station was large and trains are fast.” Kanno laughed once through the first tear. “Thank you.” Thomas washed bowls slowly. The kitchen tap covered the smaller sounds without pretending not to hear them. When he returned, Kanno had moved to the sofa with tea. Isha sat close beside her, one leg folded beneath herself, shoulder touching Kanno’s. No explanation was requested from him. The afternoon did not become an event. Kanno answered one work message and ignored the rest. She and Isha compared the photographs from the clothing trip, including the plum dress image Thomas had still not been shown. Kanno refused to display it on the grounds that the image belonged to Isha’s private operational planning. Thomas accepted the ruling with less grace than he believed visible. Later, Kanno slept for forty minutes with her head against the sofa back and one hand still holding the corner of the blanket. Isha lowered the blind against the strongest sun. Thomas worked in his office with the door partly closed. Matsuda’s message arrived at three seventeen. **Inside. The sofa is smaller than the photograph. The plant survived.** A second message contained two images: a narrow kitchen counter with one induction ring, and the plant on the balcony inside its lighter pot. The kitchen was worse than Thomas had inferred. The plant looked unaffected by geography. Kanno woke when Isha’s phone sounded. She read the message twice, wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand and replied: **Send the chair. We need proof.** Matsuda sent a photograph of the folding chair leaning against the wall. Kanno looked at it for several seconds. “That is not a chair. It is a threat with hinges.” Thomas asked whether the apartment contained any surface large enough for a chopping board. Matsuda’s answer arrived while Kanno was still typing: **No consultancy today.** She stayed for dinner because leaving at five would have required pretending the afternoon had been a short visit. Thomas made noodles with vegetables and no interpretive structure. Afterward, Isha showed Kanno the flexible room and said the futon could remain open. Kanno looked from the bedding to her bag. “I did not bring clothes.” “You have a shirt,” Isha said. “I have clean sleep clothes that will be short on me and long on you.” Thomas offered an unused toothbrush still sealed from their travel supplies. The practical arrangement formed before Kanno could decide whether accepting it meant something larger. She slept in 202 that night. --- Three days later, a yellow notice appeared beside the lift. **ROOF TERRACE CLOSED — INSPECTION AND MINOR REPAIR** Recent rain had left damp staining near one parapet joint and slowed the eastern drain. The management company had arranged a contractor for Friday morning. Residents were asked to keep clear until Yoshimura removed the notice. Thomas read it twice. Isha stood beside him on the way back from an early grocery trip. “Rowan.” “Yes.” The passage had been available for more than a month by their count. They had left it unused while the page remained unfinished. Rowan’s questions about snow, roof material and repair still waited in the notebook beneath the printed Mugi test page. At ten thirty on Friday, the roof access reopened while the contractor was still packing tools. Thomas and Isha went up with no claim to inspection authority. Yoshimura stood near the terrace entrance holding the completed work note, and Arakawa watched one worker lift the eastern drain grille back into place. The roof garden looked much as it had during the year-end cleaning: movable planters, folded tables beneath the cover, swept paths and the parapet surrounding the open sky. Near the eastern edge, one row of paving slabs had been lifted. Beneath them lay a dark protective layer and a narrow channel leading toward the drain. Thomas asked the contractor what was beneath the visible surface. The man glanced at Yoshimura before answering, confirming that Thomas was a resident and not someone challenging the repair. The main roof, he explained, was reinforced concrete. Above it sat sloped material guiding water, bonded waterproof layers and protective surfaces where people walked. The planters stood on their own supports so soil and roots did not rest directly against the waterproofing. Water entered the grilles at the low points and passed into internal pipes. “The damp mark was not through the slab,” he said. “The seal at the parapet edge had opened. Small area. We cleaned it, resealed it and checked around both outlets.” “Who inspects it normally?” Thomas asked. “Management arranges the scheduled checks. Residents report staining, standing water or damaged surfaces. Do not lift anything yourselves.” Arakawa made a quiet sound of agreement. He had spent years telling Thomas that noticing maintenance did not grant ownership of it. Isha asked about snow. The contractor said the roof structure was built to take the loads expected for the building, but snow and ice still mattered at the drains and door. Management cleared access when accumulation became troublesome; residents should report blocked outlets rather than improvising with sharp tools. The answer was less dramatic than Rowan’s concern and more useful for that reason. Thomas looked at the exposed layers once more before the worker replaced the final paving slab: hard structure, softer barriers, slope, outlets and several places where failure could begin. Yoshimura handed the work note back to the contractor and told Thomas that if he wanted an apprenticeship, the management company’s telephone number was on the notice. Thomas said he wanted only enough information to stop wondering. “No,” Arakawa said. “You wanted enough information to begin wondering correctly.” Isha laughed. Thomas accepted the correction and left the roof before anyone gave him a drain tool. --- They finished the page that evening. The Mugi photograph occupied the upper-left corner. Beneath it, Thomas’s Common glyphs stood in compact printed lines, recognisable despite the machine-even spacing. The first test had made the script look like an official proclamation concerning cat ownership. Weeks of corrections had softened the worst joins and widened two vowel marks that Isha said looked angry when compressed. They worked from Kelda’s requests and left most of the intervening months unreported. The roof paragraph required the longest lexical argument. Common possessed stone roofs, timber roofs, tiles, pitch, gutters, drains and builders. It did not possess a familiar category for reinforced concrete, waterproof membranes or a resident-accessible roof terrace above four storeys of apartments. Thomas first wrote *poured stone*. Isha objected that Kelda might imagine molten rock. They changed it to *a hard roof made by pouring a wet mixture of sand, small stones, water and binding powder around metal bars, then allowing it to harden*. That consumed nearly two lines and still described concrete more accurately than either expected a letter home to require. The waterproofing became *thin joined layers laid above the hard roof to turn water away, protected beneath the surface where people walk*. The roof garden became *a flat upper place shared by the households, with movable boxes of soil and plants kept above the water-turning layers*. Management became *the owner’s appointed workers*, which was incomplete but sufficient to answer who arranged repair. The meal was easier once Thomas stopped trying to preserve names that carried no meaning in Common. He described boiled white grain, fish cooked beneath direct heat, greens with crushed seeds, sliced cucumber, and a broth made with sea plant, mushrooms, bean curd and salted bean paste left to change over time. Isha removed his phrase explaining that the fish skin had been correctly crisp because Kelda had asked what he cooked, not for an evaluation report. Mugi required precision of another kind. The light-caught image, they wrote, had been made by common tools of this world: one caught reflected light and another marked its pattern upon paper. It was not a painted drawing, did not move, contained no part of Mugi and involved no magic known to them. Thomas wanted to add that the image could be copied. Isha asked what problem this solved for Tessa and removed the sentence. They gave Mugi’s size relative to Porridge, her mixed black, brown, orange and white fur, the small clean cut at one ear tip, her greenish eyes and her habit of sleeping on any cloth whose owners had assigned it another purpose. They could not honestly assess her hunting skill. The final sentence said that she belonged to no household, received food and shelter from several people, visited by choice and obeyed only when she found the request reasonable. “Tessa will consider that a challenge,” Thomas said. “Tessa considers weather a challenge.” The line remained. Isha wrote the answer about silence herself. She used almost the same words she had found in February: human silence was shallower, crowded close to the body with pipes, engines, doors, wind against walls and water moving through channels made for it. In the forest she had once heard farther and chosen among distant sounds. Here she heard less distance and more nearness. She still turned one side of her head sometimes before remembering that the gesture no longer opened anything. She answered Ruvan in the remaining space: human knees had not made climbing less elegant, though Earth walls were built for climbing and therefore cheated more openly than mountains. Thomas added one sentence for Mara. Their ordinary healers could not be named usefully across worlds, but the means to call them remained beside Isha during every passage, and they would use it if his condition changed or he failed to wake by the agreed time. Near the bottom, they wrote about Matsuda and Kanno. The names were foreign sound-labels on the page, no stranger than Thomas had once been in Larchmeet. They explained that one friend had moved to a much larger city for eighteen of their months of paid work. Long linked carriages, driven by a machine along fixed metal roads, could cross the distance in less than a day. The other friend had stayed in their home after helping him leave. Thomas read the last sentence twice. “That may be too much interpretation for Kanno.” “It is ours,” Isha said. “Not hers.” They kept it. The final printed page read: > **Kelda. Green Road. Mira, Rowan, Mara, Tessa, Sereth, Ruvan, Aelira and Lethira, if Kelda chooses.** > > We read the whole page. > > Thomas was unconscious for four minutes and twelve seconds when it arrived. He woke before our agreed time for calling ordinary healers and recovered without a new symptom. The road has been open again for many days. We waited because open does not mean safe, and because we wanted this page ready rather than merely full. > > The small square above is a light-caught image made by common crafts of this world. One tool catches the light reflected from what stood before it; another marks that pattern upon paper. It is not a painted drawing, does not move, contains no part of Mugi and uses no magic we can detect. > > Mugi is a small adult female cat, lighter than Porridge, with mixed black, brown, orange and white fur, greenish eyes and a small clean cut at the tip of one ear made by human care before we knew her. We cannot honestly report her hunting skill. She belongs to no household. Several people feed or shelter her, and she visits us when she chooses. She sleeps on folded cloth whose intended purpose she rejects. She understands more requests than a cat should and follows only those she considers reasonable. > > An ordinary evening meal was boiled white grain; fish cooked beneath direct heat; greens with crushed seeds; sliced cucumber; and broth made from sea plant, mushrooms, bean curd and a salted bean paste allowed to change with time. There were red berries afterward. Thomas says this description makes dinner sound like materials for road repair. Isha says Kelda will understand both. > > Human silence is shallower. It does not reach as far. It is crowded close to the body: pipes, moving machines, wind against buildings, doors closing and water moving through channels made for it. In the forest I could hear farther and choose among the sounds. Here I hear less distance and more nearness. I still turn my head sometimes before remembering there is no hidden distance to open. Human knees have not made climbing less elegant. Built climbing walls cheat more openly than mountains. > > Rowan: our building has four occupied levels. Its main roof is hard poured stone made from sand, small stones, water and binding powder hardened around metal bars. Above it are shaped layers that guide water, thin joined layers that turn water away and a protected surface where people may walk. Movable soil boxes and plants stand above those layers. Water leaves through grilles and pipes at the low places. The owner’s appointed workers inspect and repair it. Residents report stains, standing water and damage. It stands against the snow expected here, but snow and ice can still block the water paths. > > Mara: a small ordinary tool of this world can carry our spoken request to nearby healers. It uses no magic we can detect and remains beside Isha every time. If the effect changes, or Thomas does not wake by the agreed time, she will use it. > > One friend, Matsuda, has moved to a much larger city for eighteen of our months of work. Another friend, Kanno, stayed in our home after helping him leave. Long linked carriages, driven by a machine along fixed metal roads, can cross that distance in less than a day, though not as an evening walk. All four of us remain friends. No one was abandoned. The leaving was still sad. > > Kelda, tell us whether the east-road work is yours and whether the workbench has accepted correction. Tell Tessa the picture used space she was correct to demand. Tell our families we received every question, including the ones that did not fit. > > We are living. > > **Isha Vaeloren. Thomas Albrecht. Green Road.** The page filled one side and most of the other. The photo and printed script remained lighter than the dense handwriting of their previous letter. Thomas weighed it against the retained paper guide despite knowing that his kitchen scale could not measure the system’s actual limit. The difference was beneath the scale’s useful certainty. They printed a second copy for their records and destroyed the first draft containing three broken glyphs and an accidental modern word. The final sheet went into the clear sleeve until morning. Neither proposed sending it at night. --- On Saturday, Thomas ate breakfast while Isha watched how much he finished. The procedure had become familiar in its objects and remained hostile in its purpose. Charged phone. Written address. Blood-pressure monitor. Timer. Water. Folded duvet. Clear route for emergency access. Five minutes without meaningful waking remained the call threshold; any new acute sign would end the wait sooner. No neighbour expected them, and Kanno had confirmed by message that she was home with the recovered futon and no need to visit. The page lay alone on the low table. They read it once in Common. The printed voice sounded different from handwriting—less like either of them, more like a small public document from a language with no office left to issue one. Mugi’s fixed face watched from the corner with direct suspicion. Thomas’s blood pressure remained normal. He had slept well, had no headache and had trained neither the previous evening nor that morning. The passage had been available long enough that waiting another day would change no counter they understood. Isha sat behind him on the duvet, legs braced around his hips and one arm crossing his chest. Her other hand rested over his pulse. “We can stop,” Thomas said. “Yes.” He waited. The answer had to remain true before it could become consent. Isha looked at the page, then at him. Fear had not become smaller through repetition; it had become more accurately placed. “I want it sent. I want you awake after. I accept that choosing the first does not guarantee the second.” Her hand tightened against his chest. “Send it.” Thomas covered her wrist with his palm. He held Kelda as Green Road’s third member, not as a location his imagination could trespass upon. He held the chosen page, the names written upon it and the permission for Kelda to decide who else read. The photo contained no living part of Mugi. The paper contained only what Thomas and Isha had chosen to say. “Kelda Flintvein,” he said in Common. “Green Road. This page is from Thomas and Isha. We choose to send it to you.” For two breaths, nothing changed. Then pressure aligned behind his eyes. “It has started.” Isha’s arm closed around him. The page disappeared. No light marked the absence. One moment it lay beneath Mugi’s tiny printed stare; the next the table held only the pale rectangle where paper had blocked the morning sun. The pressure drove inward. Thomas’s hand lost strength around Isha’s wrist. He heard her say his name once before the room narrowed to a white horizontal tear and ended. Isha guided him back onto the duvet. The timer began. His breathing remained even. Pulse rapid, regular. Pupils equal. No seizure, colour change or obstruction. Isha checked every fact in the order they had written and continued speaking to him because silence offered no protection. At one minute his fingers flexed beneath hers. At two, his brow tightened. She pressed his palm and received a weak closing movement that did not become waking. The timer passed the previous send’s second minute and continued. “Thomas. The page is gone. Come back.” At two minutes forty seconds, his head turned toward her voice. His eyes opened at two minutes fifty-eight. They failed to focus immediately. Isha bent close until her face filled the available world. “Name.” “Thomas.” His throat felt scraped. “Home. Two-oh-two.” Her thumb pressed into his palm and felt his fingers answer. “What happened?” “We sent the page to Kelda.” Isha stopped the timer. Relief crossed her face and did not make her hands less exact. She checked speech, grip, pupils and movement. Thomas answered every question. Mild nausea arrived when he tried to lift his head and receded when she lowered it again. “Two fifty-eight,” she said. Thomas closed his eyes for one breath. “Less than before.” “Still unconscious.” “Yes.” The agreement remained necessary. Grey-white static spread across his sight. He opened his eyes fully. **TRANSFER SENT** **30 CYCLES TILL NEXT PASSAGE** The words broke apart almost at once. Thomas repeated them. Isha wrote the notification and time in the private notebook, then returned her hand to the centre of his chest. They did not discuss a curve. At ten minutes awake, Thomas could drink. At fifteen, he sat against the sofa with Isha behind him and the blanket over both their legs. The headache remained broad and dull. His body felt less damaged than after the previous send and more emptied than the shorter absence suggested. The shared-chat notification sounded from Thomas’s phone on the kitchen counter. Isha ignored it until his pupils had been checked again. Only then did she reach for the phone, keeping her other arm around him. Matsuda had sent a photograph of the plant beside the narrow Tokyo window. One new leaf had unfolded toward the glass. Beneath it he had written: **The chair remains hostile. The plant has chosen to stay.** Kanno had already replied. **One of you has judgement.** Thomas read the messages from where he rested against Isha. His fingers moved toward the phone. She held it out of reach. “You may answer when you can sit without using me as furniture.” “I am using you as support.” “That distinction can wait.” The page was gone. Matsuda’s photograph remained open on the screen between them, waiting for a reply that could arrive whenever Thomas was awake enough to write it.