Chapter 17: Rain Through the Roof

The first thing the roof tried to drown was the ledger. Cold water struck the open pages beside Ren’s sleeping head. Elara caught the book before the second stream hit. "Ren." He woke hard, one hand reaching for a weapon he did not have. His chair scraped backward. Pain crossed his face when his burned wrist hit the table. Then the ceiling cracked. "Everybody up!" Elara shouted. The front room became motion. Bram seized the pantry inventory and began ordering food crates away from the kitchen wall. Kellan dragged empty benches beneath the driest section of ceiling until Pella Dorn came through the courtyard door, looked up once, and kicked one of them back out of the way. "Not there. Roof load is moving west." Kellan stopped immediately. A board tore loose upstairs with a sound like a snapped bone. Pella pointed with her measuring rod. "Nobody goes onto the roof. Nobody touches the west stair. Kellan, straight timber from Jessa’s stack. Bram, clear the hearth and kill the fire. Nia, papers only. Nothing heavier than your satchel." Nia, already gathering route packets one-handed, looked offended. "My healer wrote a note, not a curse." "Then survive long enough to complain to her." Maelis lifted the sealed evidence case from beneath the records table. "The living specimen?" "Stable is outside the roof fall," Pella said. "Check the wall line before entering." Maelis went. Ren reached for the ledger crate. Pella’s rod touched his chest. "You carry paper." "I can carry a crate." "You can also fall dizzy and become a second structural problem." Ren looked at Elara. She was already holding out three tied packets. "Congratulations," she said. "You have been promoted to paper." He took them. For ten minutes, Sovereign Guild existed as a line of people moving everything it could not afford to lose. Request records. Charter. Inspection sheets. Food. Bandages. The seven pans that still belonged to Mella. The old wayhouse key stayed around Bram’s neck. The seizure notice remained nailed to the door because apparently even disaster respected municipal procedure. Then water began running down the wall behind it. Pella climbed halfway up the safe stair, pressed her palm against a ceiling beam, and swore. "That patch is gone. We need tarred canvas over the opening before the rain eats the lath. From inside. Two people in the attic, no farther west than my chalk marks." "I’ll go," Ren said. "So will I," Elara said. Pella looked at their wrapped hands. "Of course the founders are the damaged ones." "We are building a tradition," Ren said. "Build it somewhere cheaper." The attic smelled of wet wood, old dust, and rain. Pella had marked the safe joists from below. Ren and Elara crawled along them on hands and knees, dragging folded canvas between them while Kellan and Pella built a temporary brace beneath the sagging rafters. Wind pushed through the hole hard enough to make the tarp snap. "Now," Pella called. Ren pulled. Elara hauled the opposite corner around a roof peg from inside. Neither stepped onto the broken boards. Neither touched the Cuff. The tarp bellied downward, dumped a sheet of water over both of them, and slapped flat. Elara gasped. Ren wiped rain from his eyes. "Good news. We have confirmed the roof is leaking." She laughed once despite herself. Then the next gust shoved them together. Ren caught the sound joist with his left hand. Elara’s shoulder pressed against his chest beneath the canvas, her wet hair stuck across one cheek, and for several seconds they could not move without letting the wind take the tarp. Below them, Pella shouted something about the eastern brace. Elara did not answer. Her face was inches from Ren’s. He could feel her breathing. Then her expression changed. Not desire disappearing. Something underneath it breaking through. "I spent six years keeping this place open," she said. Ren stayed still. "Not because it made sense. It stopped making sense before I was old enough to admit it." Her fingers tightened around the canvas rope. "Every good worker left. Every caravan chose another road. Every person with money told me Asterfall was finished and I should go somewhere useful." Rain hammered the tarp above them. "If the hall dies," Elara said, "then they were right. Everyone who left was right. I stayed and became the idiot keeping chairs dry in a building nobody needed." Ren looked down through the attic gap. Bram was protecting flour sacks like military assets. Kellan was holding a brace exactly where Pella had told him. Nia had formed the records into dry stacks. Maelis returned from the stable carrying the evidence case under her coat. Yesterday, three requests had ended before supper. "Nobody gets to call this place useless anymore," Ren said. "That is not what I am afraid of." He knew. Elara’s eyes stayed on his. "You still want to find your way back." "Yes." The word hurt her. He said it anyway. "I need to know whether Earth can be reached. I left people there without a goodbye." Ren swallowed. "But if I ever find a road—if I decide to take it—I will tell you. I will not disappear." Elara stared at him. "That is an inadequate promise." "I know." "You could say you will stay." "I could." "But you do not know." "No." Something in her face softened and became angrier at the same time. Another gust pushed them closer. Ren did not close the distance. "Elara." "What?" "Do you want me to kiss you?" Her breath stopped. The answer came too fast. "No." Ren moved back as far as the joist allowed. "Okay." No disappointment used as pressure. No joke. No second attempt. That made it worse. Elara looked away first. By the time the storm weakened, the front room was dry enough to function and ugly enough to prove it had survived. Pella’s emergency invoice sat beside the lockbox. Three silver marks and two copper bits: tarred canvas, roof hooks, dry battens, cart hire, and two night laborers. Jessa’s donated timber had kept the brace cost from climbing higher. Elara counted out the payment. Seven silver and one copper became three silver and nine copper. "Shortfall," Ren said. "Twenty-two silver and one copper." Most of the orchard fee had just become a roof that was still temporary. Nobody called it unfair. They had protected the ledger, the evidence, the pantry, and the room where people came asking for help. After midnight, Ren finally reached the small temporary room he had been using upstairs. He changed into the driest clothes he owned and sat on the edge of the cot without enough energy to remove one boot. A knock came at the door. Elara stood outside in a dry shirt with damp hair loose around her face. She looked furious. Mostly with herself. "I answered a question badly," she said.