Location:Seven Peaks — The Hall; Elian's Room; The East Terrace; The North Gate Yard
Date/Time:TC1858.01.18 – TC1858.01.21
The bell at the north gate rang twice, clean, and Raven knew from the Hall that the rider had come in at a walk.
It was the splice. The rope had a bad splice in it that nobody had mended because it was useful: when a rider came in hard, the second stroke went flat, and everybody on the mountain had learned what that meant without being told. Two clean strokes meant somebody had come a long way and had not needed to hurry the last of it.
She did not get up. She sat at the Hall table with the return for the first month half written in front of her and listened to the gate open and close, and to boots on the yard stones, and to Thorne's voice at the foot of the stair saying something short, and to the boots coming up.
Thorne put the letter down beside the return. It was in Mei's hand, folded small, the way she folded things she meant to carry.
