The scores went up on the Arena wall before the second bell on Day 72. A clerk with a ladder and a pot of white paint did the lettering himself. He wrote each name in the same neat hand, and each score beside it, and he did not look at the crowd while he worked.
Tobin stood at the foot of the ladder with his hands in his coat. He read the names as they went up, one after another, moving his lips.
“Ansel,” said Tobin. “Dray. Dunne. Corran. Ash. Ives. Harrow.”
He stopped. He did not read the numbers. Calen saw him look at the paint and then away from it, the way he would look away from a cut he did not want to count.
“You can read the numbers,” said Calen.
“I can read them,” said Tobin. “I am not going to. They are not names.”
The clerk finished the Silverspire column and came down the ladder. Calen looked up at the wall.
Kade had come up behind him without a sound. He read his own score twice, with his chin lifted.
