Hild had somehow managed to occupy both beds. Mod hadn't seen it happen, and when she tried to figure out how, she couldn't. The room suggested the outcome had occurred gradually and become irreversible sometime during the night.
The facts were straightforward.
Her bed was a mess. Hild's bed was a mess. And she was partially dropped in the floor between the two. Nearby, crumbs covered the pillow near Beadu's face. At the same time, a cloth-wrapped parcel bulged beneath the left side of Beadu's blanket. On the windowsill sat a box of match packets with two missing.
Beadu had been carrying those matches everywhere since she got then. Her reasoning was simple, reliable fire was important.
Mod considered that difficult to argue with. Beadu was normally right about things involving food or heat.
Mod dressed without lighting the lamp.
She tapped Hild once on the shoulder.
Hild snapped upright in a beat. Her eyes swept the room immediately. Mod first. Then Beadu. Then the door.
