The first three days back in Vellasera were supposed to be quiet.
Katarina had planned them that way. Rest, review the Coppara letter drafts, let her qi reserves rebuild after the crane work, and maybe sleep past dawn for once in either of her lives.
The neighbors had other plans.
It started with the baker on the corner, who stopped her on the second morning and asked what the Montecardi were building with all those pipes. Then the harbor master's wife, who'd heard about the clean water test from Dalla, who'd told Ottavia, who'd told everyone within shouting distance. Apparently, much like her salt addiction, Ottavia's information network had no off switch.
By the third day, Katarina had fielded nine questions about the sanitation system from people she'd never spoken to before, all of them some version of "is it true you made dirty water clean?"
