Sect Year 2 · fourth month · day 3 · the rim of Sallow Basin
Lin lay with his cheek against the bronze and let the cold soak into the bone under his eye. The metal had been cold all night. It had gone on being cold after he stopped shivering, and after the stars had gone out one by one over the white floor. Now that the sky above the basin was turning the colour of pale milk, the cold had a grain to it that he could feel through his skin, like the grain of a board under a plane.
He didn’t remember deciding to lie down. He remembered only the rim’s note, which had risen in the dark and then sunk back to a steady hum. The way his knees had given out under him as if someone had lifted a stool from beneath them.
Pei sat a few paces off, against the foot of the rim where the two masked men had put her. She had her arms round her knees again. Her lips moved constantly, and the numbers came up out of the crack behind her in a low, even rhythm that was not hers. It had been going since the dark. Lin had counted the first hundred in his head and then stopped, because the numbers were not for him to keep.
