Sect Year 5 · fourth month · night of day 1 · the forty-seventh life: Hallam Ford, her thirty-first year
Calla found her in the hall after the evening bell, at the window at the far end of the ward. The glass there was thick and wavy with age, and the river showed through it as a grey smear under the bank. Nesa had come out for a breath that did not smell of lye and linen. She had got only as far as the doorstep and the cold of the pane against her forehead when the heavy tread came up behind her.
“You’re a fool,” Calla said.
“I’ve been told.”
“You sit with the ones nobody pays for, and they die in your lap.” Calla came to stand beside her. The lamp in her hand made a yellow patch on the wet glass. “Sit with the paying ones instead. At least they go into the glass with somebody watching. Somebody says what they saw, and it goes in the book, and the family has something to hold.”
“The paying ones have a witness coming on a road that doesn’t exist yet.”
Calla opened her mouth and then closed it again. She didn’t argue. She looked down the hall toward the back of the ward. There, the night beds stood in their row with the dark behind them, and then she unhooked a fresh lamp from its bracket and held it out.
