Tobin asked the price of the Last Rest test before the basin had cooled.
He sat on the edge of the yard trough with both hands in the water. Nell had heated it on the kitchen stove and carried it out in the big iron pot, and the steam came up between the boy’s fingers in thin white threads. The yard was grey with early light. Somewhere behind the stable, a rooster that did not belong to the Keep was making a poor job of it.
“What is the price, sir?” said Tobin. “For the test. You said there was a price.”
“Heat,” said Calen.
“Whose heat?”
“Yours. It comes out of the fingers first.”
Tobin looked at the water. He had gone quiet in the way he did when he was about to name something. “How much heat, sir? Each time?”
“More than the last time.”
