The heavy oak door of the nook latched behind Ilyra. Her booted footsteps climbed the stone stairs toward the western gallery until they were swallowed by the growing murmur of the crowd above. Inside the whitewashed room, the animal fat lamp flickered slightly in the draft from the barred alley window.
Seyun started to draw his wrapped hands back toward his lap. He didn’t get them halfway across his knees. Mina’s small, calloused hands closed over both of his wrists with a grip like iron razor-sharp clamps, pinning his forearms flat against the scarred oak top of the rubbing-bench.
“Mina—” Seyun began.
“Be quiet and look at me,” his sister said. Her voice was not loud but it was colder than the river water at the south wharf. She had spent six years in sickrooms where shouting disturbed fevered patients.
Seyun stopped and met her eyes across the narrow bench. Above them, another fifty spectators filed onto the plank tiers. It shook dry dust from the ceiling beams onto Mina’s dark hair, yet she didn’t blink or glance upward.
“She just stood at that bench and handed you the three silver pieces she saved for her brothers’ winter seed,” Mina said, each syllable clipped and exact. “She broke the seal in front of your face, told you what it cost, and told you she wasn’t using it to buy your vote. And when she asked you whether that was the whole of how her mark touches your body, you gave…
