Sect Year 1 · ninth month · day 30 · Azure Stream Sect, Outer Court lime store
A boy from the Deacon’s office found Lin on the Inner Court path in the afternoon. Lin was sitting on the low wall below the cave with his back to the pines and his left arm pressed to his ribs. The boy had lime on his boots. He said the Deacon wanted the student at the lime store, not the hall, and then he waited to see whether that would be enough. It was. Lin got up.
The way down ran past the measuring basin. There, the Outer Court measured a student’s training against the marks cut into the stone rim. The spring water sat clear to the bottom today, with the floating bronze gauge resting quiet at its center. Lin had stood at that basin’s rim twice in his life, watching the bronze gauge rise to a new mark both times, to no one’s pleasure.
The woodshed stood beyond it with its door shut and its back wall to the path. The thirty notches were still cut into the boards there, one for each morning he had waited, and nobody had planed them away. He didn’t stop. He passed the outer gate post. There, the pale patch of scraped wood showed through the newer paint, and he kept his eyes on the path.
