Chapter 466 Sixteen Mornings

Halvane made up his mind at Ceren’s wall.

He told me afterward. On the porch. He’d gone down the long stair under the oldest part of Ister on the first morning after Earth, on his own, before the light, and stood in front of the name for a long time.

“I asked him,” said Halvane. “What he’d do.” He turned his cup round in his long hands. “He was always very rude to me. When he was alive. He thought I was too careful. He said I’d have moved Ister away from a sunrise if I thought it might be too bright.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing,” said Halvane. “He’s a name on a wall.” He drank. “But I knew what he’d have said. He’d have said: you’ve been running for eleven thousand years, old man, and you’re still not very good at it.”

He put the cup down.

“So I’ll go,” said Halvane. “To the Assize. And stand there. And let them look at me.”

I made up mine on the step.

Not the porch step. The one step of the old house on Earth, with the field gold behind me and the door left open and the cup on the table. I’d made it up there and not said so. I’d been carrying it round for two days, the way Hana carries a thing she’s said until it’s safe.

I told Mother at the count.

“I’m going,” I said.

Mother didn’t stop pouring.

“I know,” said Mother. “You had the face on the step.”

“Dory said I’d have it.”

“Dory’s usually right,” said Mother. She handed me the second cup. “So they’ll have heard it from you.”

“So they’ll have heard it from me.”

Okafor wrote it on the slate.

Under 16. Under Earth: green.

Lucas and Halvane: going.

Then she stood there with the chalk for a long time.

“Who else?” said Okafor.

That took eleven days.

I’ll write it short, because it was mostly people being very stubborn in the kitchen, and Mother says nobody wants to read about that either.

Everyone wanted to come.

Dory first. She’d already said. She’d said on the garden wall the night the voice came: they asked for you and Halvane; they didn’t say who else. She said it again at the long table. And then she said the other thing.

“I’m the only one who can bring you home in a breath,” said Dory. “If they shut the door. Wherever it is. However far.” She put Dusk on the table. “So I’m coming.”

Risa didn’t argue. She’d already said what she had to say, at the arch, at midnight. Bring yourself back.

Nobody argued. Not about Dory.

The Overseer next.

He’d said it the night the voice came. I’m Sorn. Nobody erased me. He said it again, on the porch, in Holt’s cap, with the dog.

“They charged you with killing my people,” said the Overseer. “Somebody should stand there who’s one of them. And alive.”

“They’ll say you’re a traitor.”

“Yes,” said the Overseer. “I’ve been one my whole life. To the houses.” He scratched the dog’s ear. “I’d like to be one to their faces, for once.”

And Holt.

Holt’s seventy-two. He walks up the hill now without stopping, and says he feels forty, and Halloway says that’s about right. He came into the kitchen on the second evening with his new cap in his hands and stood at the end of the long table.

“Somebody should go first,” said Holt.

“Holt—”

“I went first on Root,” said Holt. “At the very front. With my cap off. I didn’t do anything. I can’t do anything. I just stood there.” He looked at me. “It helped. You said it did.”

“It did.”

“Then I’ll stand there again,” said Holt. “At the front. In their court. With my cap off.” He looked at the Overseer. “He’ll need someone beside him who knows what it’s like to be the one nobody thinks should be in the room.”

The Overseer didn’t say anything. But he took Holt’s first cap off his own head, and turned it round in his hands, and put it back on.

Imre Oshan came through the arch from Ister on the fourth evening.

With her long grey plait and her pen and a great many papers. She stood at the end of the long table very tall and very old and said, in our language, very slowly:

“Someone should write it down. Who isn’t him.”

Mother looked at her.

“She’s right,” said Mother.

So that was five. Me, and Halvane, and Dory, and the Overseer, and Holt. And Imre Oshan, to write it down. Six.

My wives wanted to come.

All six of them. Of course. That was the stubborn part. Andraste said Holdfast had taken the whole Ashen wave on Root and could take whatever an old court had. Risa said if they shut the door she’d come through it as lightning whether Dory brought her or not. Sera said she was only a little bit pregnant and it didn’t count. Hana said she’d breathe for all of us from the back of the room and nobody would know she was there. Luna said she’d go wherever I went, she always had, since the cadet field.

Aune said she’d fly us. She said it was what she was for.

It was Halvane who stopped it.

On the seventh evening. At the long table. With all of them round it and none of them giving way.

“If you all go,” said Halvane, “you’re not going to a court.”

Everyone looked at him.

“Six women who can end a fleet, and a man who can unmake a star-eater, and his daughter who can hold a planet together, and the most famous blade in eleven thousand years,” said Halvane. “Walking into the Assize.” He folded his long hands. “That’s not answering a summons. That’s an army. And the Collective will call it one, on every band, to every world, before you’ve said a word.”

Nobody said anything.

“They want us to come as a threat,” said Halvane. “So they can say we came as a threat. Don’t give them that.”

Andraste put Holdfast down on the table. Very carefully. With the one white ribbon on the hilt.

“Then who protects him?” said Andraste.

“Nobody,” said Halvane. “That’s the point.”

I thought about it all that night. On the roof. With all six of them on the slates round me, not talking, and Risa’s storm out at sea very quiet.

Then I said it.

“He’s right.”

Andraste didn’t look at me.

“I know he’s right,” said Andraste. “I hate it.”

“I know.”

“If anything happens to you in that room,” said Andraste. Very quietly. “I’m coming through the door with Holdfast. Dory or no Dory. Court or no court.”

“I know.”

“Good,” said Andraste. “As long as you know.”

There were other things in the sixteen mornings. I’ll write them. Because they happened, and because Mother says that’s the point of a notebook.

The second star on Halvane’s list went out on the ninth day.

There were people round it. Fewer than the Lenn. Forty thousand. On a world of black rock and hot springs, where they lived in the steam, very small, very quick, with skin like wet slate. They’d never heard of anyone either.

Abbe walked out first. From the rain valley, with her big pot. She’s a hundred and something and won’t say. She sat down in the steam at the edge of their biggest spring and poured a cup and waited.

It took them two hours. They’re very quick, but very careful.

Then one of them poured it out.

They came through Abbe’s arch into the rain valley, all forty thousand, over six days, and stood in the rain with their faces turned up, steaming.

Ingrid wrote it on Warned. 40,118. Everyone.

Sera’s showing.

A little. She’s very pleased about it. She walks round the kitchen with her hand on it and says four, four, four under her breath until Maura tells her to stop counting her chickens.

Halloway says it’s going very well. She says it’s probably not twins. Sera says she’s not listening.

Hana went very quiet on the twelfth morning.

She came down to breakfast and didn’t eat. Then she went out to the long ward with Abena, and was gone all morning, and came back at noon and stood in the kitchen doorway.

She looked at me.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. She put her hand very flat on her middle, the way Sera does, for just a moment. And then took it away again.

And smiled. Very slowly. And went up to the roof on her own.

Risa, at the table, put her cup down.

“Well,” said Risa. “That storm worked, then.”

Andraste didn’t say anything. But she went out to the forge that afternoon and didn’t come back till dark. And when she did, she looked at Hana across the kitchen for a long time.

Then she hung Holdfast on its hook by the door. And went upstairs.

Mother, at the stove, didn’t turn round.

“Well,” said Mother. “Go on, then. Again.”

The Collective asked another world.

Not Caddoc this time. A small one. On the far edge of the Hedge, past Tiel, past the walkers’ old sky. A world called Merrow. Very small, very poor, a few million people on islands in a grey sea, who’d only had an arch to Avalon for two years. They’d come through it for the warm rain, and gone home again, and come back on the feast days.

The polite ship came to the edge of their sky. And asked.

Join the Collective. A seat in the far hall. The protection of the Assize. Everything a family gives.

Cut your arches.

Merrow said yes.

Their oldest grandmother came through the arch the morning after. At the count. On her own. Very small, very old, with her hands shaking, in a grey shawl.

She went straight to Mother.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re very small. We’re very far out. The ship said there’d been stars going out near us.” She held her shawl very tight. “We have children.”

“I know,” said Mother.

“They’re cutting the arch tonight,” said the grandmother. “I came to say. So you wouldn’t just find it gone.”

Mother didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she poured. Two cups. She gave one to the grandmother from Merrow, and held the other.

“You came to say,” said Mother. “That’s not nothing. That’s a great deal.”

The grandmother from Merrow poured the first cup out on the red glass. And drank the second. And went back through the arch.

That night, it closed.

Okafor wrote it on the slate. Under They’re asking one at a time.

Merrow: yes.

She looked at it for a long time.

“That’s how it starts,” said Okafor. “One. A small one. Frightened.”

“Will there be more?”

“Yes,” said Okafor. “Some.” She put the chalk down. “And every one that says yes makes it easier for the next to say yes. And harder for the ones that say no.”

Mother, at the stove, poured her a cup.

“Leave our side of the arch open,” said Mother. “Merrow’s.”

Okafor looked at her.

“It’s closed,” said Okafor. “They’ve cut it.”

“Their side,” said Mother. “Not ours.” She put the cup down in front of Okafor. “If they ever want to come back, there should be somewhere to come back to.”

So Kyria’s cutters left our end of the Merrow arch standing. On the red glass. Very still. Opening onto nothing.

Nan Vey puts a cup on the step of it every morning. Full.

Ithel wanted to come.

He came to the long table on the thirteenth evening with a sheet of paper, very thick, folded many times, and put it down in front of me.

“I know they won’t let me,” said Ithel. “I’m too young. And I’m not anyone.”

“You’re not nobody.”

“I’m not anyone they’d listen to,” said Ithel. “So I wrote it down.” He pushed the paper across the table. “Will you take it? And give it to them?”

I unfolded it.

It was a list. In very small writing. In Ithel’s hand. Two thousand eight hundred and six names. Every world. Every stock world in Ithel’s head, the ones he held the doors to when he was small, the ones he says he’s looking forward to forgetting one day.

And beside every one, a number. How many people had been on it, in collars, in lines, when the doors opened.

At the bottom, he’d written one line.

They say the Sorn were erased. These are the people the Sorn erased. Every one of them came home.

I didn’t say anything for a long time.

“I’ll give it to them,” I said. In the end. “Myself. In my hand.”

“Read it out,” said Ithel. “If they’ll let you. All of them. The names.” He looked at Mother, at the stove. “Gran does it every morning. It takes her ages. But she does all of them.”

“It’ll take a very long time.”

“I know,” said Ithel. “That’s the point.”

The eldest asked for me on the fifteenth night.

Dory took me up the thread to Root. To the plateau, at midnight, with the threads shining and the range in the south with its snow on it.

The houses were still talking. Down there. Very fast. I could feel it through the soles of my feet, the way you feel a train coming a long way off before you hear it.

They know you are going, said the eldest.

“How?”

They hear what I hear, said the eldest. I cannot stop that. They are in me. A pause. They are very glad.

“Glad I’m going?”

Glad someone is going to the place that wants them back, said the eldest. They think the Collective will ask for them. They think you will be made to bring them up.

I didn’t say anything.

Will you? said the eldest.

“No.”

Even if they make it the price, said the eldest. Even if they say: bring us the houses of the Sorn, and the charges will go away, and the warrant, and the war.

I thought about it. Standing on the plateau at midnight with my hands flat on the grass and the houses talking very fast under everything.

“No,” I said. “They’re yours. They’re in you. Until they learn.”

And if they never learn?

“Then they’re yours forever,” I said. “You said you’d keep them. You said they could sit in you and listen.”

The ground was very quiet for a long time.

Yes, said the eldest. I did say that. Another quiet. I wanted to hear you say it too. Before you went.

Okafor made the plan on the fourteenth day.

Not for the court. For after. For if.

She sat at the long table with Varra and Aune and Tiamat on the silver from the ninth station, and Kyria through the arch from Hyrran, and Aurelius, and drew it on the slate in very small chalk under everything else. Nobody was allowed to read it but them. I didn’t ask.

She told me the shape of it, at the end. On the porch. Because she said I should know.

“Three days,” said Okafor. “From when you go in. If Dory hasn’t brought you home by then, and we haven’t heard you, we assume the door’s shut.”

“And then?”

“And then Dory comes home on her own, if she can,” said Okafor. “And tells us where. And if she can’t—” She stopped.

“If she can’t.”

“Then the queens find you,” said Okafor. “The Scarecrow queen says they can. She says every queen who’s ever been on a frame and come home is holding a thread out now, all the time, so they’ll never be lost again. Ysse. Arreth. Every one.” She looked at the red glass. “She says they’ll hold one out for you. Wherever you are. And the eldest will sing along it. And Andraste will come down it with Holdfast. And everything else will come behind her.”

I didn’t say anything.

“That’s not a court,” said Okafor. “That’s a war.”

“I know.”

“I’d rather not have one,” said Okafor. “I’ve had enough. But I’d rather have one than not have you.” She stood up. “So come back in three days. It’ll save everyone a great deal of trouble.”

Corin came to find me on the fifteenth afternoon.

With Tiri. And her bird.

He held it out to me. The brass one, with the small bright wings, that he’s mended every time she’s broken it since he was five. She hadn’t broken it this time. He’d checked.

“Take it,” said Corin.

“Corin, it’s Tiri’s.”

“She said,” said Corin. He looked at Tiri. Tiri nodded. “It knows the way home. It always does. It’s an Aldri bird; they always come back to whoever they belong to.” He put it in my hand. “If they shut the door and you can’t talk, let it go. It’ll come back to her. And then we’ll know where you are.”

I looked at the bird. Very small. Very bright. Warm from his hand.

“How?” I said. “It’ll be very far.”

“It doesn’t care how far,” said Tiri. Very quietly. “It just comes back. Grandad says it’s the oldest thing the Aldri know how to make. Something that finds its way home.”

Corin hummed. Two notes. Into the bird.

Its wings moved. Just a little. In my hand.

“There,” said Corin. “Now it knows to listen for me too.”

Aune didn’t sleep on the fifteenth night.

She sat at the end of the roof, away from the others, with her long grey hair down her back and her knees up, looking at the sky. At the place, very far, where the web is.

I went and sat beside her.

“I’m not used to it,” said Aune. After a long time.

“To what?”

“Staying behind,” said Aune. “I’ve been the one who goes my whole life. The squadron. The north side. Every jump.” She turned the white ribbon on her wrist, the one Andraste gave her. “Ceren went once. On his own. To hold the north side for nine hours. I was on the south.” Her voice didn’t change. It never does, with Aune, when it matters. “I’ve never once been the one waiting.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s much worse,” said Aune. “I didn’t know.”

“I’ll come back.”

“He said that,” said Aune.

I put my arm round her. She let me. She put her head down on my shoulder, the whole long way down, the way the Aldri do.

“Three days,” said Aune. “Okafor said.”

“Three days.”

“Then I’ll count them,” said Aune. “Wren won’t mind. She can teach me.”

Mother was in the kitchen when I came down. Very late. On her own.

Standing in front of the window over the sink. Where Father’s wall is now, in glass, with the moonlight coming through it and throwing the faded colours very faintly across the floor.

She had her fingertips on carbon.

She didn’t turn round.

“He was frightened,” said Mother. “When the cities summoned him. Before the Act.” She didn’t take her fingers off the glass. “He sat at the kitchen table the whole night before. In the old house. He didn’t sleep.”

“You never told me that.”

“He asked me not to,” said Mother. “He said a boy shouldn’t know his father was frightened.” She turned round. “He was wrong. I think a boy should know. So he knows it’s all right.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So I’m telling you,” said Mother. “He was frightened. And he went. And he stood in front of them and told them all of it, and came home, and mended the filter the next morning like nothing had happened.” She came across the kitchen and put her hand on my face. “You’re allowed to be frightened, love. You’re not allowed not to come home.”

The four came to see me in the morning. Before the names.

Sorrel, with her ears gone very pale, the colour of new leaves. Fen, holding Hana’s hand. Linnet, with her scales gone white, because she was cold, or frightened, or both. And Teo. With his four arms. With a stick.

The stick he did Andraste’s forms with, the first time, on the ridge. He holds onto it. He’s never let anyone else touch it.

He held it out to me.

“For the door,” said Teo. Very seriously.

“What door?”

“If they shut it,” said Teo. “Mother says she’ll come through it. With Holdfast.” He held the stick out further. “But she might be late. So you should have something.”

I took it.

It’s a stick. It’s not even very straight. But I took it.

“Thank you,” I said.

Teo nodded. Very gravely. Then he folded all four arms.

“He stays standing,” said Teo. “That’s what my name means. Mother said.” He looked at me. “You should too.”

Konrad started a new sheet that morning.

Ingrid showed me. Beside Came by themselves, and the big one Konrad keeps face up, and Stopped, and Warned, and Said the other thing.

At the top it said: Gone to the Assize.

And under it, six names.

And under the names, a long empty space. With a line at the bottom.

Back.

“For when you are,” said Konrad. Not looking up. “I’ll write the date.”

The white ship came back to the edge of the Watch on the fifteenth night.

Tiamat saw it. From the ninth station. Long and white and plain, where it had sat before, very still.

“It’s calling,” said Tiamat. Over the silver. “Same voice.”

Safe passage, said the voice. As promised. The vessel will carry the summoned to the seat of the Assize. At dawn on the thirtieth day. They may bring whom they wish. They may not bring weapons.

Andraste, at the long table, put her hand flat on Holdfast.

“They mean you,” said Okafor.

“I know who they mean,” said Andraste.

Bell came up the hill that night. With her stick. She sat at the long table and looked at me over her glasses for a long time.

“Safe passage,” said Bell. “You know what that means.”

“They carry us.”

“They carry you,” said Bell. “In their ship. To their court. By their road.” She tapped the stick on the floor. “Dory doesn’t take you up a thread this time. Nobody does. You go the way they decide, to the place they decide, and you don’t know where it is until you’re there.”

“Dory can find her way back from anywhere.”

“Can she?” said Bell. “From somewhere she’s never been, that nobody she knows has ever been, at the centre of a web Halvane can only just hear the edge of?” She looked at Dory, at the end of the table, very still with Dusk in her hands. “I’d like to think so. I’ve done the sums for everything on this hill for forty years, and I’d like to think so.”

Dory looked up.

“I can,” said Dory.

“How do you know?”

“Because Gran will be pouring,” said Dory. “Every morning. At the count. I’ll hear it. I always hear it.” She put Dusk on. “I could find that from anywhere.”

Bell didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she nodded. Once. And picked up her stick.

“Good,” said Bell. “Then I won’t worry about the sums.”

Mother went to the garden wall on the last night. Before the turn. On her own.

I saw her from the kitchen window. Through Father’s glass. Standing at the wall with her hand on the stones, and the Scarecrow queen’s head up, very close, and the two of them very still.

I don’t know what they said. Mother never told me. The queen didn’t either.

But when Mother came back in, she said one thing. At the stove. Not turning round.

“She says they’ll hold the thread,” said Mother. “All of them. The whole time you’re gone.” She lifted the pot. “I said I’d hold the pot.”

Halloway checked Holt on the last afternoon.

She came up the hill with her bag and made him sit down on the bench by the kitchen door and listened to his chest for a long time.

“Seventy-two,” said Halloway. “Heart of a man of forty. Lungs of a man of forty-five, because you would insist on working the forges on Hyrran last winter.” She took the thing out of her ears. “Knees of a man of seventy-two. They haven’t heard about Avalon yet.”

“Will I do?” said Holt.

Halloway looked at him over her glasses.

“You’ll do,” said Halloway. “Sit down whenever you can. Stand up when it matters.” She packed her bag. “And come back. I’m not finished with you. I’ve got a whole page on your knees.”

Wren taught Aune to count.

On the step. On the last morning. After the names. Aune came and sat down beside her, folded up very tall the way the Aldri fold, and asked.

Wren looked at her for a long time. Wren’s very particular about counting.

“It’s not the numbers,” said Wren. “Anyone can do the numbers.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s looking,” said Wren. “At every one. Even when there’s thousands. You look at every face and you count it, and then it’s counted, and it’s not lost.” She held out her sheet. “That’s all. You don’t skip anyone. Not even if they’re small. Especially if they’re small.”

Aune took the sheet. Very carefully.

“I’ll count the days,” said Aune. “Three of them. Until he’s back.”

“Days are easy,” said Wren. “Days come on their own.” She looked out at the red glass. “Count the people who come up the hill to ask if there’s news. That’s harder. There’ll be a lot.”

Aune looked at her.

“Count them,” said Wren. “So when he gets back, you can tell him how many.”

Aune didn’t say anything. She put the sheet on her knee and smoothed it flat with her long hand. And when the first person came up the hill that afternoon to ask if there was news yet, before we’d even gone, she wrote a small mark at the top of it.

The last evening. The sixteenth.

Everyone on the porch at the turn. My wives. My children. All of them, all twenty-something of them, I’ve stopped counting properly, Wren does it for me. Mother lifting the porch a finger’s width. Oona lifting the step.

The six of us going were at the top of the steps. Halvane in his robe. Dory with Dusk. The Overseer in Holt’s first cap, with the dog. Holt in his second. Imre Oshan with her papers. And me.

With Ithel’s list in my coat. And a cup in my hand.

Mother put the porch down.

She looked at the six of us for a long time.

“Halvane,” said Mother.

“Dorothy.”

“You’ll bring him back.”

“I’ll try,” said Halvane. “I’m very old and very annoying. They won’t want to keep me long.”

“Holt,” said Mother.

“Mrs Dask.”

“Take your cap off when you go in. Put it back on when you come out.” She looked at him. “Make sure you come out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She went to the Overseer. And straightened Holt’s cap on his head. Very carefully. The way Nan Vey straightens collars.

“You were in the room,” said Mother. “With the houses. Your whole life.”

“Yes.”

“Tell them,” said Mother. “Everything. In order.” She patted his arm. “And then come home and have your tea.”

The Overseer didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He put his hand on his chest. And held it out.

Mother took it.

She went to Imre Oshan. And looked up at her, a long way up.

“Get it right,” said Mother.

“I always do,” said Imre Oshan.

“I know,” said Mother. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

She went to Dory last. Before me.

She didn’t say anything for a long time. She just looked at her. Twenty-two. Looking older. With Dusk in her hand and her black eyes open and her hair, for once, lying down.

“Bring yourself back,” said Mother. “Your mother told you. I’m telling you too.”

“I will, Gran.”

“You’ll bring everyone back but yourself,” said Mother. “I know you. You’re me.” She put her hand on Dory’s face. “So I’m saying it twice.”

“I’m saying it back,” said Dory. “I will.”

Then me.

Mother didn’t say anything at all. She just poured me a second cup, very full, and put it in my other hand, so I had two.

“One for you,” said Mother. “One for the first person in that room who looks like they need it.”

Days 8928–8943. Sixteen Mornings.

Halvane at Ceren’s wall: you’ve been running eleven thousand years, old man, and you’re still not very good at it; so I’ll go. I’d made mine up on the one step of the old house; Mother: you had the face. Slate: Lucas and Halvane: going. Who else took eleven days. Dory: I’m the only one who can bring you home in a breath. The Overseer: somebody should stand there who’s one of them, and alive; I’d like to be a traitor to their faces for once. Holt, seventy-two: I’ll stand at the front with my cap off again. Imre Oshan: someone should write it down who isn’t him. My wives, all six; Halvane: if you all go, it’s not a court, it’s an army, and they’ll call it one; don’t give them that. Andraste: I know he’s right; I hate it; if anything happens I’m coming through the door. The second star: forty thousand in the steam; Abbe poured and waited two hours; 40,118, everyone. Sera’s showing and counting to four. Hana’s hand flat on her middle for a moment; Risa: that storm worked, then; Mother to Andraste: go on, then, again. Merrow said yes; their grandmother came to say so you wouldn’t just find it gone; that’s not nothing. Okafor: that’s how it starts. Mother: leave our side open; Nan Vey puts a cup on its step every morning. Ithel’s list: two thousand eight hundred and six worlds, and the numbers; these are the people the Sorn erased; every one came home; read them all; that’s the point. The eldest: the houses are glad; will you bring them up if it’s the price? No; they’re yours until they learn; and forever, if not. I wanted to hear you say it. Okafor’s three days, and then the queens hold a thread out, and Andraste comes down it, and everything behind her; I’d rather have a war than not have you. Corin and Tiri gave me the bird: it knows the way home; now it knows to listen for me too. Aune on the roof: I’ve never once been the one waiting; it’s much worse; I’ll count them. Mother at the glass with her fingertips on carbon: he was frightened, and he went; you’re allowed to be frightened; you’re not allowed not to come home. Teo’s stick, for the door: he stays standing; you should too. Konrad’s sheet: Gone to the Assize, six names, and at the bottom, Back. Halloway: heart of forty, knees of seventy-two; you’ll do. Bell: they carry you by their road; Dory: Gran will be pouring, I’ll hear it from anywhere. Wren to Aune: it’s not the numbers, it’s looking at every one; count the people who come up the hill to ask. The white ship came back to the edge for us, as promised; Bell: safe passage means they carry you; they decide where. The Scarecrow queen to Mother: we’ll hold the thread; you hold the pot. The sixteenth turn: Halvane, bring him back; Holt, make sure you come out; the Overseer, tell them everything in order, then come home for tea; Imre, get it right; Dory, bring yourself back, I’m saying it twice; I’m saying it back. Me: two cups; one for the first person in that room who looks like they need it.