“Actually,” said Alyssa, “I was going to ask if maybe you could show me a real one?”

Iona blinked. “A real one?”

“Yes. Like a real building site? I think I’ll learn much better that way, instead of just talking about it in this small office.”

* * *

Out in the city, downtime had begun. The manufacturing plants lay silent: so did the building sites, except for one or two where work had fallen behind schedule. The streets were quiet. Iona could hear chatter from residential buildings where citizens had gathered in pairs to talk, and realized that giving Alyssa this tutorial was perhaps the closest she had come to doing the same. This realization emboldened her to broach the subject that had been bothering her.

“Did you hear about what happened at the funeral yesterday?”

Alyssa looked up sharply. “What? No. There were lots of funerals yesterday, which one?”

“He was called Weston. My colleague.”

“No.”

“It was very strange,” Iona said, and described the event.

Alyssa listened and nodded, her gaze fixed on the ground. “Yes, strange,” she agreed when Iona had finished, then she looked up and said, “Wow, that’s an amazing building.” She was talking about the old sawmill. Back when this was built the forest had only been a stone’s throw from the center and the city had only been the town. The old sawmill was used purely for fine-cutting work these days: large-scale wood processing happened at the newer, larger mills. The building was the shape of an incomplete sphere set into the ground, with large open areas to let in the light. Its imposing shape bulged outward and then swept back like a wave before connecting with the ground again on the other side. The interior, most of which was visible from the outside, was functional and unprepossessing—but this made for a smart aesthetic contrast between the shell and the contents.

Iona stopped walking and followed Alyssa’s gaze. “You must have seen it before, surely.” It was a bit hidden away these days—a number of tall blocks had been built around it and the path that led to it, once a major thoroughfare, was now a back alley—but everyone surely passed it at some point.

“Of course,” said Alyssa after a short pause, and then hurriedly added, “I’m just looking at it with fresh eyes because we’re talking about architecture and stuff.”

“I thought you were thinking about tearing it down.”

Alyssa spun around. “Me?”

“I mean ‘you’ as in the planning department. I thought they recommended it should come down to make way for a residential block.”

“Oh. I don’t know.” She looked back at the building. “Did you design it?”

Iona was about to say yes, but then she doubted herself. “I, er . . .” She thought she had. She certainly felt that connection she felt with all buildings she’d designed. But now that she thought about, it surely the building was too old to be one of hers? And she couldn’t actually remember designing it.