Sect Year 3 · ninth month · night of day 8 · Azure Stream Sect, lower lane, the east well
On the third night the draws came up thinner than they had on the first. Lin noticed it in the rope before he saw it in the cups. The bucket went down into the pit and came up with less in it, a finger less and then two, and the grit in the water ground under the staves like sand under a shoe.
Each time he let it down, the pit seemed deeper, and each time he drew it up, the families at the top of the steps had less to show for their waiting. Somewhere in the first part of the night the rope had stopped being a rope to him.
It had become a thing his hands did without asking him, and he noticed that with a flat attention he didn’t like. He had made the bucket a task on the first night. He knew now what the task had cost, and the families had paid for it in their cups.
They came up anyway. They came up the steps with their cups out and their faces shut, the way people come back to a door they have knocked on too often. The woman who had asked on the first night whether the water was clean did not ask now. She held out her cup and watched the grey in it settle, and her boy slept against her…
