Cale held the tin kitchen lantern with both hands two inches above the flour bench while Prit angled the lime-crusted bottom corner of the earliest slate toward the flame.
Down in that cramped lower margin, where the stone had recorded the half-conscious mutterings of a starving Seed-rank core during Noll Vey’s first fevered week in the wall, Prit’s grey audit chalk had traced out the exact letters of D-07a.
“Read it word for word, Prit,” Noll said from the scullery wall, keeping his voice low and tight so he would not drown out the sounds coming up the iron vent pipe. “Don’t skip a comma.”
Prit tapped the tip of his bony forefinger against the first tiny line of grey-rubbed script and read aloud:
“D-07A — WITNESS: SIX GRAIN BEETLES OF THE LOWER SCULLERY SEAM. CLAIM SPOKEN IN DORMANT DRIFT: THE STAIR NEVER ENDS FOR ANY THIEF WHO ENTERS.”
DEBT CLAUSE AUDITED — THE STAIR NEVER ENDS FOR ANY THIEF WHO ENTERS
Hobb blinked his flour-dusted eyelashes, staring from the slate to the open cellar doorway. “A thief? What in the name of good suet has Tessa Dene got to do with a thief? The girl wouldn’t steal a fallen crab-apple off the king’s highway without leaving a receipt tied to the branch!”
