Heated bricks beneath their feet warmed the carriage as it rambled through the city to the Hall of Lights where Marga Isalka would present herself to her fellow wardens and her son Grigori would be apologized for -- ill, as they always said, and regretful in his absence.

Ivan noticed his wife's brooch coming undone and fastened it for her, keeping her shoulders swathed in mink. Each time he interfered with her person he felt he was disturbing an artist's still life with ( apish hands. )

The wind howled like daylight wolves and bit as hard.

Agata had the windows closed out of courtesy for her house guests, wanting to be respectful in any case. There was steeped black tea in the Vesaksalka family set, her heritage pride showing. She looked to the window, counting the days that frost would crystalize over her door frame, the snow outside swallowing life in white silence.

"It has been quite some time, ( Aksinya." )

She toiled and traced,
teased and misaligned all those pieces upon pieces that colloided all silver and ( dashed all fairytale dreams. )

In the aftermath of awkward insinuation and temporary housing, Aksinya had been left alone, abandoned without a word. She stood for a long moment -- indeterminable in the lull of wine and those vacant outdoor noises, but when footfalls and the clamour of a group outside brought her back to the present she couldnt keep still. Her hands fretted with cups, with pages, with anything nearby in vain attempts at tidying an already pristine surrounding, each gesture a slow matriculation that brought the book a half-inch forward -- no -- a half-inch back to where it had been replaced ( from the start. )

All was quiet.

Agniessa's featherlight footsteps no longer lingered in the periphery of candlelight, and the handmaids had long since retired. She sat now -- alone, at peace -- in wait, needlework in her lap to occupy the idle moments ( until his return. )