Chapter 57: The Taste of Ash
The back room at the Anchor was a world away from their sun-drenched cottage. The walls, though scrubbed clean, seemed to absorb the dim light rather than reflect it. The air carried the faint, institutional smells of lye soap, boiled cabbage, and, underneath it all, that persistent, bitter tang. It was the smell of sickness, not of the body, but of a place.
Aurora, overwhelmed by the journey and the oppressive new atmosphere, had finally cried herself into an exhausted sleep in the makeshift crib Boren had provided a sturdy wooden box padded with clean, if scratchy, blankets. Lyra refused to leave her side. She sat on a stool beside the crib, her back rod-straight, her eyes fixed on her sister's sleeping face, one hand resting on the edge of the box as if to absorb any disturbance before it could reach the baby. She was a fortress in a chair.
