Sect Year 5 · second month · day 6 · Ninth Knot Point, the Loom’s door-stone
Pei brought his coat down from the guest room at first light and held it over one arm, the way the women of the Point carried cords. The cuffs had been brushed. The left one had been turned back so that the cloth lay flat, and he could see she had pressed the fold with the heel of her hand.
“You can’t wear it crooked,” she said. “Su will see.”
“Su sees everything.”
“Then she’ll see you took trouble over it.” Pei stood back and looked him over, her chin level and her hair tied up hard in a plain black cord. She had grown two fingers taller since the autumn, and she held herself as though she had decided it on purpose. She was sixteen, and she had her clerk’s book tucked under her other arm, the one with the Loom’s schedule folded inside. “I’m witness,” she said. “I’m not crying.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You were going to.” She glanced at the window. “Su’s been on the step since the grey came. She hasn’t moved.”
He put the coat on. The sleeve fell over his left wrist and the cold of the arm beneath it, and he bent the fingers once. They wouldn’t close past the middle joint. Pei watched the hand and did not say anything about it, which was the kindest thing she could have done.
