She picked it up and turned it in her hands. But no. Not this bottle. Grave. Graven. Not named for someone else.

Maybe some other bottle? That felt nearly right. Not quite, but nearly.

She thought about the vanity in Tumbrel. Yesterday it had seemed squared and true. But she was more than slightly tattered then. Not at her best. Perhaps there was a bottle mixed among the rest. Something wrong or lost or out of place.

If nothing else it was a place to start. So Auri gathered up the warm, sweet weight of Fulcrum in her arms. And because he hadn’t seen them yet, she took the slightly longer way through Van and Forth and Lucient before she headed down to Wains.

She paused to rest in Annulet, her new and perfect circle of a sitting room. Fulcrum settled like a king upon the velvet chair while Auri lounged upon the fainting couch and let her arms recover from the oh sweet ache of holding him.

But she was too busy for long lounging. So Auri gathered up the heavy gear again and made her slow way up the unnamed stair, taking her time so Fulcrum could marvel at the odd and cunning coyness of the place. And, as the two of them were gentle folk, they both ignored the bashful door that sat upon the landing.

Then into Tumbrel. Climbing through the wall, Auri saw the room was just as she remembered. Not perfect true like Annulet. But nothing glaringly unskew. Nothing askant or lost or loudly wrong. Now that the vanity was squared away, Tumbrel seemed content to rumble down into a long warm winter’s sleep.

Even so, she’d come all this way. So she opened up the wardrobe and peered inside. She touched the chamberpot. She looked into the closet too, nodding politely to the broom and bucket there.

Auri eyed the vanity. There were a few fine bottles there. One especially caught her eye. It was small and pale. Coruscant, like opal. Perfect with a cunning clasp. She didn’t have to open it to see that there was breath inside. A precious thing.

She lifted Fulcrum higher and tried peering through the round hole in the very center of his oh so centeredness. She hoped to notice something she had missed before. Something loose or raveledy. Some thread that she could tug to jostle something free. But no. Whether she looked straight or slant, the vanity was well and truly set to rights.

A bottle coruscant with hidden breath would be a princely gift. But no. Taking it was every bit as stupid and unkind as wrenching out a tooth so she could carve a bead from it and thread it on a string.

She sighed and left. Out through the wall, then down the unnamed stair. Perhaps she could go hunting down in Lynne, it was a piping place, and mus—