Sect Year 7 · first month · day 2 · the Ledger gallery, and the Reserve’s edge below it
Lin sat on the gallery stair with the wheel in his right hand and did not turn it.
The stair was the wide one that came up from the reading hall, its wooden treads worn into shallow dips by a century of clerks’ boots. The morning light came through the high slit window and lay across the steps in a single bar. Pei sat one step above him with her knees drawn up and her book open on them. She hadn’t written anything since she sat down. She watched the wheel.
“What does it do?” she asked.
“Nothing, while I hold it still.”
“Then hold it still.”
He turned it over in his palm instead. The bronze was warm from his hand now, which surprised him, because the stair was cold and the wheel had been cold when the founder gave it to him. He found the worn place on its rim with his thumb. It fit there exactly, the way a stick sits in a groove that other feet have worn into a path. He didn’t press. He rested his thumb in the worn place and let the wheel lie still, and the stillness felt like something he was choosing to do.
