4
SOME TIME towards the end of the day, Mikandra sat down for a precious moment of rest. She poured tea from Eydrina’s red and gold teapot and took it to the tall stool in the corner of the emergency room where a window looked out over the city.
There she sat hunched over, with her frozen hands clamped around the cup, savouring the warmth of the tea seeping through the glass. The wind had died, and grey, fuzzy clouds hung so low that they obscured the watchtower. The many roofs squished together inside the city walls were normally red, but the mist and the impending dusk rendered everything in soft grey-laced colours. In a way, it was pretty.
Where she sat inside the hospital, nothing was pretty. The old man Leitho had collapsed after a bout of vomiting and had been taken into the emerg
