The ink on the first folio was black, unsparing, and sharp as broken black glass.
Len Vey held the heavy cream-colored paper under the yellow flame of the animal fat candle, his boots braced against the damp floorboards of the sandstone bookkeeping pantry. His uninjured right hand steadied the margin, his calloused thumb tracing the embossed postal watermark of the Tern Road Network pressed into the corner of the thick parchment. His left arm hung in its ash splint, bound against his ribs by grease-stained linen, throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache that pulsed in time with the fire under the kitchen floor.
The packet had arrived cold, bearing the gritty smell of outside sleet and road tar. On the outer wrapper of waxed paper, beneath three layers of red postal lacquer, his sister’s hand had cut the address with strokes so deep they had raised ridges along the reverse side of the sheet. To Len Vey, Courier of the Third Grade, currently detained in the Rookvale Basin by Order of the Registrar. Hand to him only. Break no thread without his presence.
The letter inside didn’t begin with a formal greeting. It carried no family affection, no polite hearing after his health, and no prayer to the mountain gods for his safe passage. Cira had written the words with a hard, square-nibbed reed pen. She drove the ink deep into the linen rag fibers with the furious, rhythmic speed she used when checking a dishonest wagoner’s axle manifest:
