The afternoon had gone to the board. Ysra spread the class’s papers across the long bench in the order of their names, and then moved them into the order of the Ministry’s stamps. Liss counted the stamps twice, and she got the same number both times.
Kade polished his boots until the leather shone, and the bruise under his shirt made him move like an old man getting into a cart.
Hesper asked whether the Minister had a wife. Nobody answered her. Dorran said sorry to Ysra for a paper he had not touched, and Ysra said he could keep saying it if he liked, since it was not evidence of anything.
Calen had not told them what the board would ask. He did not need to. The board would ask for numbers, and the class knew their numbers the way it knew its own names.
Hoff came out of the guardroom at dusk and set a key on the end of the bench. It was an iron key on a loop of cord, and it was not the key to the lodging doors.
“Lodging office,” Hoff said. “The Record folders are in there, locked. They are not for the class. Nobody touches them but me and the Ministry’s man.”
