Sect Year 9 · third month · day 6, morning · Azure Stream Sect, the spring
Su had carried the lamp up the terraced path in the dark, and the wind had got into its glass before she reached the rim. The wick had drowned in its own oil. Lin saw the cold lamp before he saw her. She knelt on the wet stone at the foot of the basin with her back against the rock and her hair pinned close. She struck a flint with the patience of someone who had struck a great many flints in a great many wet places. The first spark caught and died. She waited. The second held, and a small yellow flame stood up behind the glass and leaned toward the water.
“It went out on the steps,” she said, without turning round. “I should have brought the cloth.”
“It’s lit now.”
“It’s lit now,” Su agreed, and she set the glass back on the stone and turned the wick a fraction higher.
Frost had whitened the rim of the basin in the night. It lay in a grey fur along the stone and across the fern fronds that grew from the cracks in the cliff, and where the first light reached it the frost went to drops. Then it ran down into the spring. The water stood at the top notch. Lin had looked at it coming up the path, and he looked again now, because he couldn’t stop looking. The gauge…
