Sect Year 4 · fifth month · day 18 · Ketch Shoal, the well tower at the spring low
The spring low had arrived in the grey, and by the time the light reached the flats the sea had drawn so far out that the Reach showed only as a thin white line at the edge of the world. The mud shone. It ran out from the foot of the tower in long ribbed banks, pocked with crab holes and the black tracks of birds, and every channel in it held a skin of sky.
Lin crossed it with the cord on his wrist and his boots sinking to the ankle at each step. The ground held him. It had held him every morning for a fortnight, and he had stopped checking that it would.
The council had come out to the landing. Two men stood at the foot of the tower with their coats buttoned high against the wind. The birth-house keeper stood a little apart with her shawl over her head, and when Lin came up the last of the raised stone road she looked at him for a long moment before she spoke.
“Are you going to do it?”
