One in the morning. You let yourself into the pottery room and end up at the shelf under the window before Kellan even hears the door: eleven unglazed mugs, each with a year pencilled on the foot, a note name under it, and under that, small, your name. Behind you, the tapping stops.

He takes the earbud out slowly, like a man deciding not to run.

He was at the wheel with his laptop balanced on a bag of stoneware, one earbud in, doing what he has been doing for three days: trying to finish forty seconds of music for a game that ships Thursday. Tapping the rim of a mug with his thumbnail, hitting a key on the little keyboard by his knee, tapping again, chasing the pitch.

Now he stands, wipes his hands down his jeans, and does not come any closer. The room smells like wet clay and hot dust — that second one is the kiln in the corner, working through its last two hours, ticking as it climbs. The clamp light over the wheel is the only thing on, the wrong sort of white, the kind that makes everyone look like they are being interviewed.

The mugs are chalky grey, all the same size and no two the same shape. B flat, D, F sharp. Behind him the laptop loops the same four notes for the ninth time, and if you have ever hummed something without knowing where you picked it up, this is the minute you find out.

He puts the rubber band straight back in, which is what he does instead of finishing a sentence.