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“I can write.”

“I meant that you feature rather heavily in the bad news.”

“Then I should probably stay out of it.”

“Yes.” Her smile lasts this time. “Probably.”

A knock comes at the door. Reivaka steps inside.

“Ziku has the request. He’s leaving now.”

Vai stands and goes to the window. Through the courtyard, Ziku crosses toward the western passage with a leather post bag over his shoulder. He sees her, raises one hand, and keeps going.

She watches until he disappears.

I come to stand several feet away. She turns her head, and I catch the faint smell of cedar soap from her hair.

“I’ll need somewhere to write,” she says. “The shelf’s too high to sit at, and I can’t get my knees beneath it.”

“I can put a ledge beneath your window.”

“In my room?”

“Yes. If you want one.”

“I do.”

The Heartwood responds to my attention. Farther along the eastern corridor, a root begins to flatten against the inside of her room. I guide it into a broad writing surface, leaving space beneath for her knees.

“Reivaka, would you have a chair taken there?”

“She can use this one.” Reivaka rests her hand on Vai’s chair back.

“It’s there.”

Her head turns toward her corridor, then back to me.

“Already?”

“It’s wood. I have some experience.”

She laughs while looking toward her corridor, eager to see what has grown. When she thanks us and collects her cup, I nearly offer to show her the ledge myself, though there is nothing she needs me to explain.

I watch the empty doorway.

Reivaka moves Vai’s chair away from mine. It has crept halfway around the table while we were at the window.

“You could ask her to dinner,” she says.

“She knows she’s welcome.”

Reivaka waits.

I told her she could eat alone. She has no reason to know I would enjoy her company at the table.

“Ask whether she’d like to sit with me,” I say. “If she comes.”

“Ask her yourself.”