Sect Year 1 · eighth month · day 1 · Azure Stream Sect, Inner Court record room
Su had the journal open on the sloped desk beneath the record room window, with one lamp at its left hand and the shutters drawn against the courtyard. The room smelled of ink and of the paper stacked along its walls, dry and faintly sweet, like the inside of a box that had been kept shut for years. The night clerk had gone to his bed after the second bell. Beyond the door the hall was empty, and the only sound was someone far off scrubbing a pot with sand.
Lin rode out at dawn with Elder Xu’s chit folded inside his coat. He sat a borrowed brown horse at the north gate with his back straight and his hands easy on the reins, and he didn’t look up at the windows of the record room. Su had not expected him to. She watched him until the road bent behind the orchard wall. Then she came back here and sat down with the journal, and she hadn’t slept well since.
The bound record had a heading for the Wheel, and she had kept it short. Asked him whether he would turn. Answered yes, the first time. Silent since the sixth month. She read that last line again now, alone. It looked less like a fact than a thing she had been told to watch.
