Sect Year 1 · ninth month · day 20 · Azure Stream Sect, Sect Master’s Hall
Gao Shun laughed again. It came out of him in wet pieces, and each piece cost him more than the one before, so that by the end he was coughing and not laughing at all. A thread of red ran from the corner of his mouth into the grey stubble of his jaw. He lifted his head off the flat stone slabs an inch. It was a considerable effort. Lin, kneeling beside him, did not help him with it.
“Forty breaths,” the Elder said. “Forty of your own, boy, and not one of mine.”
“Somebody had to,” said Lin.
“Yes.” The eyes moved to his face and stayed there, with the odd, bright interest of a man reading a line he hadn’t expected to find on the page. “The cook. The one who taps the lids.”
“He taps them to keep the rice from catching.”
“Of course he does.” Gao Shun’s mouth worked. “Everything in this sect is kept from catching, except the people who are paid to keep it.”
He was quiet for a time. The lamps burned on along the walls, unconcerned, and somewhere near the doors one of the guards was breathing as though he had been running. Lin did not look up at him. He kept his eyes on the Elder’s face. That was because the face was what he was responsible for now, and because someone should be watching…
