Chapter 156: Stitch by Stitch
The imperial engineers brought efficiency, but they also brought a foreign rhythm to the cove. The steady thump of their pile-drivers securing new dock supports was a different beat from the creak of ropes and the slap of hand-planed wood. It was the sound of the future, irrevocably arriving.
Lyra found herself mediating between this new efficiency and the cove's wounded spirit. The engineers needed clear lines, measurements, deadlines. The cove's residents moved with the slow, deliberate care of people reassembling a shattered heirloom. When Cora pressed for a decision on rerouting a freshwater conduit through a section of the orphanage garden, Lyra didn't consult a schematic. She walked into the garden, now struggling to regrow amidst the ash of burnt contracts, and sat on a bench.
