Sect Year 2 · first month · the twenty-third life: the Reincarnation Hall, Qiao’s tenth year
He had turned ten since the copy-table, and the Hall-Master asked for him by name.
The steward came down the gallery when the lamps were at their lowest and said that the boy who counts was wanted behind the door. Qiao set down his brush. His left hand was cramped from the morning’s copying, and he bent it as he walked, the way he had learned to loosen a wrist before a long page. Little Quan did not look up as he passed. But he touched the edge of his board with two fingers, very lightly, and it was the only thing Qiao had seen him do all day that could be called a warning.
The room behind the locked door was smaller than Qiao had expected, and warmer. A fire bowl burned in one corner with a smell of charcoal and bitter herbs. The narrow bed stood against the far wall, and the Hall-Master sat up on it with his back to the plaster and his bare feet on the boards. He was thinner than he had looked through the crack in the door. His hair was white at the temples and grey everywhere else, and no one had combed it for some days. His eyes were very bright. They went to Qiao, then to the lamp in Qiao’s hand, and stayed there.
