When she returned, the fire had died again. She swept the ashes up and pressed them down into the cracked clay cup.

She rinsed her sooty hands. She rinsed her face and feet.

She lit the fire a third and final time, then Auri went to Port and eyed her shelves. She brought the bottle of Esther’s and set it near the fireplace with her tools. She brought the hollycloth.

Next she carried in the jar of dark blue laurel fruit. But much to her chagrin, it wouldn’t fit. No matter how she tried, the jar of laurel simply wouldn’t let itself be settled with her tools. Not even when she offered it the mantleplace.

Auri felt unfairly vexed. The laurel would have been ideal. She’d thought of it as soon as she’d awoke and thought of soap. It would have fit like hand into a hand. She’d planned to mingle…

But no. There was no place for it. That much was clear. The stubborn thing would simply not be reasoned with.

It exasperated her, but she knew better than to force the world to bend to her desire. Her name was like an echo of an ache in her. She was unwashed and tangled-haired. It would be nothing but pure folly. She sighed and brought the jar of dark blue fruit back to its shelf in Port where it sat: self-centered and content.

Then Auri sat upon the warm, smooth stones of Mantle. She sat before the fireplace, her makeshift tools laid out around her.

The ashes in the cracked clay cup were just as they should be. Fine and soft. Oak would have made them too intractable. Birch was bitter. But this, this was a perfect mix. Ash and elm and hawthorn. They made a medley without melding or meddling. The ash was proud but not unseemly. The elm was graceful but not inappropriately apetalous, especially for her.

And the hawthorn… well. Auri blushed a bit at that. Suffice to say that apetalous or no, she was still a healthy young lady, and there was such a thing as too much decorum.

Next she brought out the bottle of Esther’s. They were terribly coy, full of stolen moments and the scent of selas flower. Perfect. Thieving was precisely what she needed here.

The nutmeg was foreign, and something of a stranger. It was brimful of sea foam. A lovely addition. Essential. They were cipher and a mystery. But that was not particularly troublesome to her. She understood some secrets must be kept.

She peered into the cooling pot and saw the tallow starting to congeal. It hugged the kettle’s edge, making a slender crescent like the moon. She grinned. Of course. She had found it underneath the moon. It would follow the moon, waxing full.