Sect Year 9 · third month · day 6, midday · Azure Stream Sect, the spring
The rim’s shadow lay now in a thin dark strip along the far side of the basin, and the rest of the spring was lit clear to the bottom. The water was the green of old glass. Lin could see the gauge’s grooves running down through it into the dark, and the top notch sat where it had sat since the morning, level with the surface and not one finger’s width higher.
Pei had come up from the lower terraces with a cloth bundle under her arm. She set it on the flat stone beside the record and unwrapped it. Inside were a heel of coarse brown loaf and a wedge of hard white cheese, both laid on the same square of cloth.
“Gao Wen sent it,” she said. “He says it’s yesterday’s, and you’re to eat it anyway.”
“It’s the heel of yesterday’s loaf.”
“He said that as well.” She broke off a piece of crust and put it into Lin’s right hand, since the left would only have held it halfway. Then she went back to her place at the edge of the basin with her own piece in her fist and her eyes on the water.
