Teodor had asked to count the stairs before he had asked for his bed, and Ysra, who could refuse a grown Dovereach magistrate a great many things, found she could not refuse a boy who wanted to count something in the dark.
“Nine,” she said, at the top of the Undercroft stair, and held the lamp out so that he could see the first step’s worn lip. “The Keystone chamber is at the bottom. Mind your feet on the eighth. It has a crack that the Mason has not yet filled, because the Mason says the crack is the stone’s business and not his.”
Teodor minded his feet. He went down slowly, one hand on the wall, his small boots finding each step with the care of a child who has been told that a fall in an unknown place is a bad thing to be seen doing. He was counting under his breath. Ysra could hear the numbers come up the stairwell after him, not in order, since he lost his place at the sixth and had to start again.
“Six,” said Teodor, to himself, very clearly. “Seven. Eight, which is cracked. Nine.”
He stood at the bottom and looked around. The Undercroft’s lower chamber was small and round, with walls of old dressed stone that had been cut so smoothly that the lamplight slid off them. In the middle, in its cradle of iron and oak, sat the Keystone. It was the size of a man’s chest, grey-black…
