Daro Kesh crossed the room in two strides and pulled the iron bolt back. He swung the pine door inward on its leather hinges.
Seyun stood alone on the narrow wooden landing at the top of the outside stairs. The morning river-mist clung to the shoulders of his clean grey hemp coat. It had been mended with neat, tight apothecary stitches along the four-inch tear over his left ribs. Both of his forearms were cradled level across his stomach. It was wrapped from mid-wrist to the tips of his fingers in thick, snow-white pads of fresh linen soaked in cooling willow-bark salve and marsh-root oil. He couldn’t close his burned thumbs or curl his fingers. Because of that, he held a newly stitched thirty-page notebook of heavy raw, unwhitened rag-paper clamped awkwardly between his bandaged left wrist and the inner crook of his right elbow.
He had no weapon at his belt, and neither Ilyra nor Mina waited at the bottom of the alley stairs.
Daro looked down at the thick white mittens of linen covering the younger man’s hands, then up into Seyun’s calm, slightly pale face. “You climbed a flight of currier’s stairs at sunrise with hands like that,” Daro said gruffly, stepping back from the threshold to clear the doorway, “when you could have sent the wagon driver.”
