The white light rose from the flagstones beneath Hobb’s mended scullery chair and traced a clean, four-sided boundary around its ash legs, linking the chair directly to the sunken witness ring where Noll Vey stood and the clerk’s table where Lord Auditor Orin Vane sat.
Across the bevelled stone rim of the court, the Hall of Witness chiselled its ruling in letters every tier could read without spectacles:
STANDING GRANTED: THE LAST GUEST. PARTY TO DEBT AND SETTLEMENT.
Beside the lectern, Clerk Cale dipped his reed pen and entered the line into the Communal Book of Witness with a firm, steady stroke. “Obligation Nine precedent sustained,” Cale announced. “The entity known as the Last Guest is formally enrolled upon the docket as both material debtor and recognized person holding voice in the settlement of Debt Ten.”
From the empty air above the rush-woven seat, a quiet breath went out—not a stage sigh, only the sound of someone who had been holding a heavy beam on one shoulder shifting his feet now that a prop had been wedged underneath.
“Thank you, Miss Dene,” the voice from the small chair said softly. Looking down at the three-legged rubble hound by the steps, it added, “And I am sorry about the paw, Bristle.”
