She didn’t hardly hesitate at all. For herself she would not dare, but this was simply how it had to be. Didn’t he deserve a few fine things? After all that he had done, didn’t he deserve a fine and princely gift?

Of course he did. So Auri strode to Mantle. So Auri opened wide the iron-bound door. So Auri entered Boundary.

It was a clean and quiet place.

There was a workbench. It was dark and smooth and hard as stone. There were mountings on the sides. A vice. A set of floating rings. A burner stand. There were taps and faucets, well-arrayed: all steel and brass and iron.

There were shelves here, all mounted on one wall. Crowded with vast and varied tools of the craft. Acids and reagents in their stoppered glasses. Sulfonium inside a jar of stone. Racks of powders, salts and earths and herbs. Oils and unguents. Fourteen waters. Twicelime. Camphor. All perfect. All true. All gathered and factored and stored in the most proper ways.

There were tools here. Alembics and retorts. A fine wide wickless burner. Coils of copper tubing. Crucibles and tongs and boiling baths. There were sieves and filters and copper knives. There was a fine grinder and a gleaming clean screw press.

There were the stone shelves too. The careful shelves. Bottles hunkered there behind the thick, thick glass. These bottles were not tidy like the other shelves. They were not labeled. They were muttly. One held screaming. Another, fury. There were many bottles there, and those two were nowhere near the worst.

Auri set the jar of laurel fruit atop the workbench. She was a small thing. Urchin small. Most things did not fit her. Most tables were too tall. This one was not.

This room used to belong to her. But no. This room belonged to someone once. Now it didn’t. It wasn’t. It was a none place. It was an empty sheet of nothing that could not belong. It was not for her.

Auri opened a drawer in the workbench and brought out a circtangular brass mold. The sort that would suit a candle well.

Her expression grave, Auri eyed the laurel fruit. It was every bit as reverent as one might expect, but it was prideful too. And held a hint of north wind’s chill. That needed to be tempered. And… yes. There was a thread of anger running through it too. She sighed. That would not do at all.

She narrowed her eyes at it and danced the numbers through her head. Glancing back and forth between the mold and the jar of fruit, she saw the wax it bore would not be near enough. Not for an entire candle. Not for a proper candle. Not for him.