The first morning after the scream was very quiet. Snow lay thick on the curved walls of the coop and on the shell plates of the little house, the chickens murmured in their pen, and the three rivers ran dark and clear through the white field.
Noah got up before any of them had settled, took the small iron tea kettle from the shelf by the door, and walked out to the nearest river to fill it.
Back inside, he held out one hand, and a small fire of his Dreams bloomed above his palm, blue and gold. He set it on the floor, where it went on burning without any wood at all, and hung the kettle over it. When the water boiled, he dropped a few dried petals from the snowy plum forest in the Gaps into a cup, poured, and let them steep until the water turned a faint pink.
It was the first time in a very long while that he had made tea for himself, and holding the warm cup in both hands, he realized it was...an odd practice for him, to say the least.
