Evening settled over the lower apothecary ward in a slow drift of coal smoke and river mist. In the front shop, the old herbalist had already blown out his counter lamp and gone upstairs to supper. Mina walked through the dividing curtain, slid the heavy iron bolt into the street door socket. Then she returned to the back check room carrying a brass oil lamp with a clean linen wick.
She set the lamp on the corner of the oak dresser beside the twenty-two-pound Balance tablet. Then she opened the rear courtyard door.
“He’s ready,” Mina said into the twilight.
Ilyra stepped back inside from the herb yard. The evening damp had darkened the shoulders of her White Heron coat. Her right arm rested motionless in its white linen sling across her chest. She didn’t sit on the wooden stool Mina offered. She stood at the foot of the oak check table, resting her good left hand lightly on the square post at the corner. Meanwhile, her dark eyes met Seyun’s across the scrubbed pine planks.
Seyun sat on the bench on the opposite side of the table, his grey hemp shirt fastened to the throat over the two silver marks and both hands wrapped in thick, fresh cylinders of white willow-bark gauze. Between them, directly in the yellow circle of the oil lamp, lay his brown leather Account Book.
