She took a tentative breath through her nose. It wasn't perfect, but it was functional. She sat up straighter, arranging her cardigan.

"Rest is for the dead, Elias," she rasped, her voice thick and nasal. She dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief. "I have things to do. I have a reservation for tea at the plaza tomorrow. I cannot sound like a frog."

Elias sighed, setting down his pen. "It’s allergies," he said. "The pollen is terrible this week."

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Madame Vos, his neighbor from the floor below, was eighty years old and possessed a will of iron encased in a frame of brittle glass. She had barged in twenty minutes ago with a tin of homemade biscotti and a head cold that sounded like a dying tuba.