Free The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A Kingkiller Chronicle Novella (The Kingkiller Chronicle) by Patrick Rothfuss

Port, she saw that nearly everything was wrong. Of course. It was just that sort of day.
    She set the lamp on the table harder than she needed to, making the flame jump high. Then she did her best to set the place to rights. Hollybottle close beside the folded secrets of the all uncut octavo book? No. By itself on the farthest edge of secondshelf. The resin wanted its own space. The brimful jar of dark blue laurel fruit moved back onto the corner table. The tiny stone figurine perched high upon the wine rack, as if it were so much better than the rest of them.

    The only thing that kept its place was her new-won perfect piece of honeycomb. She almost took a bite of it for no good reason other than to brighten up her day. She might have too, selfish as that would be. But she couldn’t bear the thought of touching it, given the state that she was in.
    When things were squared away as well as she could manage, Auri took the lamp and stepped through, into Mantle. Her cedar box was in a state of minor disarray, and there were broken matches strewn about, but both of those were quickly mended. The brazen gear was fine. Her perfect leaf. Her box of stone. Her ring of autumn gold. Her grey glass bottle filled with lavender. All fine. She felt herself relax a bit.
    Then she saw her blanket. Her perfect blanket she had made herself in only the most proper way. It had twisted and the corner lay all naked on the floor.
    Auri merely stood there for a long moment. She thought that she might cry, but when she felt around inside herself she found she had no crying left. She was full of broken glass and burrs. She was weary and disappointed with all of everything. And her hand hurt.
    But there was no crying left in her. So instead she gathered up her blanket and carried it to Billows. After searching out a clean brass pipe, she hung it like a curtain in the center of the tunnel, let the endless wind brush past, and watched it wicker gently back and forth. It billowed and luffed, but that was all.
    Auri frowned and moved to pull the blanket down again. But she was careless, and a puff of wind blew out her lamp. Re-lighting it cost her another precious match.
    Once Billows was full of flickerlight again, Auri tugged the blanket down, turned it over, and hung it on the pipe again. But no. Frontways or backways, it didn’t make a lick of difference.
    Next she climbed Old Ironways and found the grate that loved the moon the most. Her pale light feathered down like snowdrops, like a silver spear. Auri spread the blanket out to catch the moon, to bask in it.
    It didn’t help.
    She carried the blanket backward through the whole of Winnoway. She took it to the top of Draughting, threw it off, and watched it plummet through the maze of wires until it snagged one near the bottom and hung there, bobbing gently up and down. She carried it back to Mantle and wrapped it round the horrid, galling, stubborn brazen gear that stood there gloating and golden in the flickerling light.
    None of it did a bit of good.
    Unable to think of anywhere else that might help ease the offense, Auri carried the blanket all the way down to Wains and into her new perfect sitting room. She draped it over the back of the couch. She folded it and set it in the chair.
    Finally, in true desperation, Auri set her jaw and spread her blanket flat across the lush red rug in the center of the room. She smoothed it with both hands, careful not to let it touch the stone of the floor. It overlapped the rug almost perfectly. And for a second she felt hope rise in her chest that—
    But no. It didn’t fix things at all. She knew it then. She’d known all along, really. Nothing was going to make the blanket right again.
    Scowling, Auri snatched the blanket up, wadded the ungrateful thing into a ball, and headed up the unnamed stair. She felt flat and scraped as an old hide. Dry as paper written on both sides. Even the playful teasing of the new stone stair could stir no breath of joy in