---
Morning came soft and gray. The cat on the shed roof stretched, yawned like a door, and blinked at the new light. In room three of the Bent Penny, John woke before Fizz. He lay still for a breath, checked the steady line inside his chest, and felt it hold. The bad weight from the night was lower now. He could breathe without the tight taste of iron.
Someone knocked, two short and one long.
John opened the door. Edda stood there with a basket and a plain hood. She smelled like clean air and hot bread.
"Peace," she said. "Breakfast."
Fizz popped up from the pillow like a cork shot out of a bottle. "Bread?" he gasped. "Is that bread? Warm bread? In a basket? For me?"
"For both of you," Edda said, and lifted the cloth. Inside lay a round loaf and four small rolls rubbed with butter and sprinkled with something that flashed like salt and smelled like garlic.
