Sect Year 6 · second month · night of day 2 · the fifty-seventh life: Varrow Pass, his thirty-second year
The reading went on through the second day without a stop. Lin read entries five to eight at the pace he had set for himself, and when the voice began to hurry he stopped, breathed, and went on at the pace again. Tsai’s pen did not come down on the page for any of them. Pei counted each one, and each time she said the number in the same plain voice, until the number was no longer a surprise to anyone in the hall.
The seventh was the sale of a boy’s years to a shipwright on the coast. The eighth was the sale of an old woman’s, and Tsai let the old woman’s name hang in the air for a moment before she turned the leaf. Lin read both at the pace he had set. His right hand had gone tight on the edge of the page, and he kept it there, because the page was the only thing in the room that held still.
By the time the lamps were turned down for the night he was tired in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. He sat on the stool in the reading hall with his back to the wall and his hands on his knees. The left one lay closed halfway and trembled faintly, and he let it. Pei sat at the far…
