She put the five remaining matches in her pocket and took a drink of water from the cold well. The shelves looked more empty than usual in the odd, jittery light. She rinsed her hands and face and feet in the icy water. Then she sat down on the floor and ate the turnip in small bites. Then she ate her last remaining fig. Her tiny face was grave. The smell of nutmeg prickled in the air.

All flickerling and sticky with web, Auri made her way to Bakery. It wasn’t oveny today. It was hunkered down and sullen, like a forgotten kiln.

She passed the mellow pipes and turned and turned again before she made her way to the little bricky niche so perfect for her hoard of soap to season in. Not hot, but dry. And—

There was no soap. Her soap was gone.

But no. It was the shifting light from the spirit lamp, tricking her. All odd and yellow. It threw shadows everywhere. It changed the Underthing. It couldn’t be trusted. This was obviously a different little bricky niche, empty as anything.

She turned around and followed her own footsteps back to Emberling. Then she went back, counting turns. Left and right. Left then left then right.

No. This was Bakery. This was her niche. But there was nothing there. No burlap sack. No careful cakes of perfect summer soap. Even in the low red radiant of that place Auri felt ice in her belly. Was someone in her Underthing? Was someone moving things about? Rucking up the smoothness of all her long, hard years of work?

All watery and loose inside she searched about, peering around corners and shining her lamp into shadows. Barely ten feet away, she found her burlap sack torn to tatters. Underneath the scent of her sweet cinnas soap was the smell of musk and piss. There was a tuft of fur where some small climbing beast had rubbed itself against a jutting brick.

Auri stood. All tangle-haired and sticky. Her tiny face was stunned at first, numb in the flickerling yellow. Then her mouth grew furious. Her eyes went hard. Some thing had eaten all her perfect soap.

Reaching out, she took the tuft of fur between her fingers. The gesture was so tight with rage she feared she’d snap and crack the world in two. Eight cakes. An entire winter’s worth of soap. Some thing had eaten all the perfect soap she’d made. It dared come here, into the proper place for soap, and eat it all.

She stamped her foot. She hoped the greedy thing shit for a week. She hoped it shit its awful self inside-out and backward, then fell into a crack and lost its name and died alone and hollow-empty in the angry dark.