It transpires that the ants are stubborn. He calls the pest control people again a few days later.

Kairda specifically volunteers to be the one to go back, unwilling to trust her coworkers to erase this stain on her honor. The ants have won the battle. They will not win the war.

She arrives bright and early the morning after he calls, armed with apologies, a bigger truck, and a forklift.

Madral brings down the building's service elevator to meet her. It's big enough to admit her forklift with room to spare, and its weight rating scoffs at a mere planter.

"Really sorry about this!" she says earnestly, for at least the second time, when the planter has been safely transported to the truck. She's not super sure what she's going to do with it, but the ants are definitely not getting back to the apartment from here.

Still, best to be safe. "We'd better treat the kitchen this time to be sure we got them all. You won't have to worry about having poison on your counters or anything, I have time to scrub them down afterwards."

"Thank you. And I apologize again for the condition of my living room," he says wryly.

"It's totally fine! I've seen lots of places in worse shape."

She notes on her way to the kitchen that the various piles have mostly not moved since she was here last. The clutter is persistent.

"If it bothers you, though, I'm really good at cleaning houses, too. I used to have an industrial cleaning certification and everything. Not that this requires anything on that scale, of course. I can't do anything now, 'cause I have to separate company time from freelance cleaning time, but I can totally come back later if you think it'd be helpful."

"—that would be very helpful indeed," he says, surprised. "I—thank you."

"It's no problem! I mean, you do have to pay me, 'cause I do have to buy food and pay rent and stuff, but I'm super reasonable. I think. I guess most people probably think that, but I'm pretty sure it's true."

She cheerfully gets to work ridding the kitchen of ants.

"Yes, of course. I am happy to pay you."

The ants quail before her might!

They do!

She talks as she works, given that she has no particular reason to stop. It takes her a while to be satisfied that both the ants and the poison have been thoroughly removed, but eventually, she stands back and nods decisively at her work.

"Thank you very much."

"You are absolutely welcome! Um, is there any specific time I should come back to clean your living room?"

She pulls out a pocket calendar and frowns at her schedule. It may be excessively full, but she's pretty sure she can make it work. She's pretty good at making things work.

"My schedule is fairly open; what times work for you?"

She points out the few remaining empty places in her disaster schedule. Most of the areas not marked "WORK: Pest Control" or "WORK: museum" either have addresses and a drawing of a broom next to them, or have notes like "take Zada to competition", "babysit Alvade (+ do dishes?)" or "sleep, FOR REAL".

"Sleep, FOR REAL" occurs only every other day.

...he blinks at this unexpectedly clear view into the structure of her life, but then picks out a time slot that doesn't look like it's directly competing with sleep.

She smiles. "OK! That works perfectly. I'll see you in a few days, then! Take care!"

He smiles back. "And the same to you."

The ants do not return this time, but Kairda does. The time spot selected is in the early afternoon, following a morning museum shift and followed by one marked ZADA, in block letters underlined three times. It's not for a while, though.

She cheerfully knocks on his door for the third time.

He answers the door with a smile. "Hello again."

"Hi! So, where did you want to start? I think the books are probably easier to start with than the clockwork thingies, 'cause I'm not super sure how a person is supposed to store clockwork thingies."

"Part of the reason my living room is covered in them is because I have run out of sensible places to put clockwork thingies," he says wryly. "I found an empty box to stack them in for now, but yes, the books will probably be easier."

"That makes sense! We'll have the books organized in no time, and then if it turns out we need more space for your projects, we can figure out how to make that happen. You want them organized alphabetically, or by subject, or something else? Libraries do nonfiction by subject and fiction by subject and author, so that's what I'm used to, but we should do whatever works for you."

"I'm hardly about to argue with a library about how to organize books," he says, smiling slightly.

"OK! I worked in a library for like two years, so I can do it the same way here, no problem."

She gets to work organizing books.

"The range of your knowledge and experience is fascinating," he comments.