Sect Year 3 · second month · day 7 · Azure Stream Sect, the record room in the Inner Court
The record room lay under the Inner Court, down a flight of stone steps worn hollow in the middle. It was cold even in the thaw. The air smelled of cedar shavings laid in the drawers against damp, and of old ink, and under those of the lamp oil the keeper burned sparingly in a brass bowl by the door.
Shelves ran back into the dark on three sides. The sect had kept its records in this room for longer than anyone could say, and most of them were lists of rice and rent and dead names, written in the hands of Elders who had since become names on other shelves.
Lin sat at the long table with the lamp pulled close. Across from him Pei had her notebook open to a clean page, and a stub of charcoal in her fist. On the shelf behind her, bound in dark board with a plain brass clasp, the second copy of Who Lin Cang Is lay where Su had told the keeper to put it.
Its corners were worn from handling. Lin did not look at it for long. He knew what it held: the places he had slept, the things he had eaten, the words he had said about the dead. It was longer than he could have written himself, and he had never once asked her to stop.
