Sect Year 2 · second month · day 6 · the capital, the Imperial Archive, east copy hall
The desk under the north window had the best light in the east hall. For three mornings Ruo had let Lin sit at it without saying why, and he hadn’t asked. The light was good for eyes that had been tired since the winter. The wall at his back kept the draught off his left arm, which had never once stopped being cold to the elbow, and which he had stopped mentioning to anyone but himself.
He was copying the index of the Hall’s volumes. He had a sheet of the Archive’s paper pinned flat at its corners, a clean brush, the ink-stone that Ruo had ground for him before the lamps were lit, and nothing else. There was no book open at his elbow. He didn’t need one. The index lay in his head like a row of lamps down a long hall, and all he had to do was walk it and write down what he passed.
Ruo watched the first line form. She stood at her own desk two rows over with her hands folded at her waist, and she didn’t pretend to be doing anything else.
