. . . . .

Near the entrance I placed my hand in the basin; though it looked shallow I had to stretch to touch the bottom, which remained out of reach.

If such a vessel had not been present, I would have covered myself instead with other signs, obtained at each passing doorway, where they could easily be borrowed from the threshold’s demon. But here my arm descended till it was no longer part of me, lent to a practice that was not mine though still radiant: a lineage of prone firestates, older than the building but rare enough to be considered new.