Chapter 25: A Posted Error

The final was five days off, at the lamp-lighting on the forty-second. On the thirty-seventh the Hall's long upper room had one high window, and the front bench sat too low for a man with a stiff thigh. Kael took the east end of it, where sixteen sat, with the left leg run out under the bench-desk and the strapped arm along his ribs. The right hand stayed shut inside the linen so that nobody behind could count its fingers. Two of them would not close. Lucan Ferrow sat two places along in his House Voss crest, studying Kael's boots. Rhyd had come without his cup and without his smile. Halden sat opposite with his clerk, and Valcrest had the Bureau's narrow chair by the window, four turns of linen on her thumb where Kael had wound them the day before. She did not look toward him. Mira stood at…