The body slept, and the Hands went down the stair into the Lantern Hall, as they always did when the weft was quiet and the seats were empty of voices.
It was a long room. Nobody had ever been able to say how long, because the Hall was not built of stone and did not keep its shape as a building does. It was built of lamps. There was a lamp for every seat, set on a black iron stand along either wall, and the lamps burned with a steady, unhurried yellow light that made the floor shine like wet slate. Nine lamps were lit that night. Mourner walked the length of the Hall between them, touching each stand as she passed, and each one answered with a small warm pulse under the fingers, as if it were glad to be counted.
At the far end, the tenth lamp was cold.
It was not out. It was simply unlit, and its iron stand stood as black and plain as the others, with no wick in it and no oil, and nothing in the Hall ever came near it without slowing down. Mourner did not slow down. Mourner had never once been afraid of the cold lamp, because the cold lamp had never once asked Mourner for a name. But the cold lamp did flicker, from time to time, as a candle flickers when a door somewhere in the house has been opened and shut, and when it flickered now the…
