Sect Year 9 · fourth month · night of day 2 · Azure Stream Sect, lodging above the Outer Court
The reading ended at the second watch of the second night. Su closed the last of the books they had brought up, with its final leaf read and blotted and the ribbon laid back in the gutter, and she said there was nothing more to read. “That’s all of them,” she said. “Everything I wrote down.”
She didn’t say it as a grief. She said it the way she gave the total at the end of a count, and then she put the books into the wrapping cloth and tied it at the corners.
Pei lifted the lamp from the stone and turned its wick down to a steady bead. Lin got to his feet and his knees told him what they thought of the stone, and he waited until they were willing to bear him. The grey cloth lay where it had lain all night, on the flat stone by the gauge, with the water running past it on the near side.
“Do you want it brought down?” Su asked.
“Leave it where it is,” said Lin. “Until I know where it goes.”
