Sect Year 9 · third month · day 23, morning · Azure Stream Sect, the record room and the Outer Court flags
Su began again at the first leaf the next morning, because Jiang would not have it said that the Court had counted only once. “Count it twice if you must,” Jiang had said, when Su asked whether they should. “The Reaches only ever read a thing once. They have never asked whether it was read right.”
“Then we’ll read it right,” Su said.
Su had slept, or had sat with her eyes shut in the chair beside the record box, which at that hour came to the same thing. The lamp had been refilled twice in the night. Her hair was still pinned up from the day before, and she hadn’t stopped to take the pins out.
This time Pei kept her pencil moving. She had the spring tally open on the bench beside her. Its margin was full of small upright ticks in two shades of lead, and she checked every name Su read against the tick that should sit beside it. Jiang sat at the long table with the grey book open at the spring’s pages and did not argue with the arrangement. The lamp burned steadily. Outside, the lane was grey with the early light, and the first bell had not yet rung.
