The second stone came home on a day without sun.
On the morning of day ninety-six after closure, dull light lay across Roan's empty support. Nerin's existing outer supply service was due today. A date on its schedule was not receipt. Sera left the arrival field blank when an adult messenger first brought the list.
Ilma's chest was wrapped in dry, salt-marked cloth. Number, seals and cloudiness matched the outward record. They followed its transfer from Nerin's designated chest through the adult carrier and supply service. Only then did Sera enter its actual receipt in Roan's yard. The first stone had returned yesterday, cloudy in its own chest. Both supports finally had their objects again.
They did not have sufficient sunlight. A brief brightening between clouds supplied no recovery day. Sera rechecked tomorrow's yard reservation and adult duty. Varen regretted the wasted square on today's calendar. At least, she said, they had not begun charging a stone while it was still elsewhere.
The place coordinator warned them about folded market awnings arriving tomorrow. Their storage area would not overlap the supports, but spreading them to dry might throw a long shadow. Sera asked when they would be opened instead of declaring the stones first. Somebody would have to trade beneath those roofs in the sea wind.
Ilma and the responsible adult compared two possible arrangements. Against the wall, the stones lost morning light. In front of the door, the awnings blocked traffic. Waiting in her chair, Sera reopened her little yard drawing. Objects that moved easily on paper had come back with their actual lengths. She added another sheet instead of making the supports smaller.
Under Ilma's agreed supervision, Tio copied the awning outline with paper and ruler. His finger allowed no heavy work. Adults moved the cloth and supports while he erased and redrew the passage. Being good with a pencil did not make a boy solely responsible for the yard's safety.
They proposed drying one portion at a time on the agreed low restraints, then clearing what dried first. That required more of the existing adult worker's time. They checked availability and place-use payment. Unnamed hands could not multiply for lightstones. If the answer failed, recovery might begin later. Sera left that possibility beside the drawing too.
By midday, the answers aligned. The adult drying the awnings chose a short additional morning interval. Another receiver checked the passage. Ilma accepted current restraint checks and tomorrow's reconfirmation. This was preparation, not sunshine. Clouds changed shape over the finished arrangement all afternoon.
Then the coastal market's place coordinator asked for a drawing. Part of the pier floor would be repaired, and people needed a temporary way through existing ground passages. Sera turned her yard sheet over. No new sea lane was being requested. Fish loads and customers needed to avoid the same narrow doorway.
She asked what places would actually be open. Permitted dry alleys and an existing yard, the coordinator explained. The site owner retained repair barriers and passage decisions. Nobody was asking Sera to sign an unsafe place into safety.
“No need to borrow the sea?”
“Only your feet today.”
“They don't lend themselves out for long.”
They laughed and compared the short walking section and available chair first. She could promise no comfortable knee. She could choose a possible interval for a small ground task.
That evening, an existing market sheet arrived. Thick lines joined two doors and a passage. A red-marked door would close this time, yet her eye read it as the main entrance. Before drawing another line, she noted a question: to whom, and when, had this old paper been shown?
Maru's questions stayed on their own route. The permitted outer approach and screening, remaining house-interior and drinking-water conditions, and next responsible receiver had not disappeared beneath market work. Twenty residents remained at Roan. Nobody had returned to Maru.
On day ninety-seven, real sunlight reached the yard. The awning stood low in its agreed area; an adult checked supports and passage. Both stones came from their separate designated chests. Ilma and the next receiver compared numbers and condition. Each began its first sufficient sunny day. Yesterday's brief brightness did not enter the count.
Sera did not stay as an all-day charging attendant. She handed her share of the record to the agreed adult and read the market inquiry. Varen completed his ground-level clerk training, then took his chair. Old duties high in the tower need not follow them into every low place.
Tio decided he had drawn the sun too large. That would not increase the light reaching the stones, Sera said. He could make the clouds smaller. Ilma reminded him that today's paid assistance had ended before he improved the weather. This time he pocketed the pencil.
Sera asked the market coordinator where people would really approach from. Boats supplied only some of them. Residents came overland with baskets; traders pushed loads. One arrow gathering them into one doorway looked tidy. It removed the space a wheel needed to turn. Her first drawing had left something out entirely.
The place coordinator and adult carriers could meet for the site comparison on day one hundred. Before then, she could examine the drawing's purpose, actual doors and repair boundary. Going alone sooner would give no permission to cross a barrier.
Day ninety-eight brought clear light from morning. Some awning cloth had been removed; the remainder shaded neither stone. After checking the present arrangement, the adult worker put them out. Each received its second sufficient sunny day. Sera attributed the acknowledgment. Roan's weather did not report Nerin's distant sky.
The man who had first brought the public chart stopped at the desk. His daughter's letter still awaited final delivery after Nerin's postal handover. There was no further news. Sera promised no imminent reply merely because a regular round trip had finished. He had come to ask whether the market included postal guidance. She could show the current desk.
Perhaps the sea did not always need to be holding a story, he said. Sera looked at her paper. She did not know how his day had been, but she had heard what guidance he wanted. No letter needed opening. He checked the actual market date and left. A map could show today's necessary door without carrying a person's name.
Miran said she would not be selling bread there. Somebody had assumed she might. Sera had never offered that explanation, but agreed that private baking would not become an example in the market guide.
Hern asked whether there was somewhere to sit without a long walk. Sera would check an actual permitted chair before drawing one. Then let them know, Hern said. Before distributing one route to everyone, she needed to hear a different destination. She sent the question to the market owner.
On day ninety-nine, both stones received sufficient sunlight again. The adult receiver read their positions and clearing condition. That evening, both were confirmed clear. Only now could Sera close the three-day recovery. They entered their designated dry chests. Neither was dispatched or lit.
Varen expected a quiet yard for a while. Another load was coming, Ilma replied. Sera laughed. Empty supports did not reserve the whole place for cartographers. The adult coordinator read the next booking's area and gathered the awning's remaining ties.
Edin reported that the additional Maru material was still being reviewed through the assigned desk. There was no new approach permission or survey voyage. Receiving that reply on the same day as a market answer did not make them one advance. They still did not know the house interiors. A clear sky left that blank unchanged.
Sera returned to the old market drawing. Its large red doorway had emphasized the previous load entrance. This time, floor work stopped passage there. The old paper still spoke the past loudly. Nobody needed to write a lie for yesterday's guide to lead today's feet astray.
She did not propose throwing it away. Comparison showed what had changed. But customers could not be handed both versions and told to choose. The current guide had to be recognizable where it would actually stand. She wrote tomorrow's first question.
Tio wanted to see the drawing even on a day without paid assistance. Looking in personal time differed from working under Ilma. Did that mean he need not report every wrong thing he noticed? Yes. Then today he would begin by asking the way to a bakery, he said.
Sera rose and straightened her knee. Recovering the stones for three sunny days had not erased her fatigue by calendar. Tomorrow's site work allowed short walking and seated reading. Extra alleys could wait. The return journey needed its margin first.
The final adult receiver locked the two chests away. Sera did not take the key back. The stones had returned, received actual sun and come to rest unused. Those separate finished lines let a cartographer leave the desk too. She need not wait for the sea to become quiet.
Outside, empty market baskets knocked together. She imagined feet, then folded the old map. Today's destination was her accommodation, not its large red door. Tomorrow, following other people's actual movement, she would see how wide one doorway needed to be.
The yard drawing remained larger now, with its attached sheet. She did not trim it back to the neat size it had first possessed. Tomorrow's door question likewise needed the awkward turning space left visible. It would be easier to make a narrow clean line than to ask the carriers where their frames actually turned. She had already seen what that kind of ease cost a support's morning light. The old market sheet stayed folded separately, ready for comparison rather than another day of unmarked use.
The last shadow lengthened across the yard. Passing the supports, Sera remembered when lack of sun had been the problem. Enough light received did not require holding somebody else's evening for more. She touched the old map in her bag and followed the present road outside.