Sect Year 1 · ninth month · night of day 9 · the fourteenth life: Brack Quay, his twenty-ninth year
Nell came down the house stairs on her backside, one step at a time, counting out loud.
“Nine. Ten. Eleven.”
Ardon stood at the bottom with his hands ready and counted with her. “Twelve.”
“Twelve,” said Nell, and bumped down onto the next step with great care, because the step was the widest one and she liked to be sure of it. “Thirteen.” She was four years old and had been counting for two of them, and she counted the way other children ran, all at once and with her whole body. Her hair stuck out behind her in a dark tangle that her mother had given up on before breakfast. At the bottom she turned round, hooked her heels over the last step, and announced that the count was wrong.
“Which part?”
“All of it,” said Nell, with dignity. “It’s too many.”
It wasn’t too many. Ardon knew that without counting again, and he suspected she knew it too. He lifted her down onto the flags and told her she had been very thorough, and she accepted this as her due.
