For several seconds after Seyun finished speaking, the only sound in the check room was the soft hiss of the linen wick drawing oil in the brass lamp. Ilyra’s expression had not softened into easy forgiveness. But the cold, distant wall that had dropped across her eyes. Just then, she walked out into the courtyard half an hour earlier had pulled back by a degree. She was no longer looking at a clerk trying to manage her. She was listening to an audit.
“Go on,” Ilyra said quietly. “Show me the entries.”
Seyun used the side of his bandaged right wrist and the tip of his little finger. He turned four leaves of the leather-bound Account Book until the ninth page lay flat under the lamp light.
Ilyra leaned forward half a step and read the heading written at the top of the page in Seyun’s square, tidy hand:
Ninth of the Charter Month — South Ferry Crossing. Disbursed: Four silver pieces (entire leftover winter copying savings) to the Reed-Ford ferry forge shop for forty pounds of river-dredged marsh-iron billets. Stowed beneath the bench for Ilyra of White Heron Hall to weight her ash-shaft spear.
Beneath the silver payout sat a second line, written in smaller ink on the night after the ferry crossing:
