Mrs. Vautrin brought the chair from beside the door and set it near her desk.
Henry sat on its front edge. Sorel waited until he was settled before lowering himself into the other chair. The clay pot stood between them, its rounded shoulder catching a pale strip of light from the window.
For a moment, Henry looked at the cord around its mouth. One end had been tucked beneath the other in a complicated knot. It was easier to study that than the man who had made people abandon their stalls.
"Your name was written on a paper she gave me," he said.
Sorel glanced at Mrs. Vautrin, then back at him.
"I hope my arrival is a little more helpful than the paper."
"It had the address."
"A useful beginning. Did it tell you much else?"
Henry shook his head. His hand rested over the book in his pocket.
"That you're going to teach me. And that you have a farm."
"Both true." Sorel leaned back, leaving his hands open on his knees. "You will come to live there with me. You'll have a room of your own, and there will be space for the things you want to bring. Mrs. Vautrin has told me about the belongings you've kept here. We can look at them together before we leave."
Henry glanced at her. She nodded.
"All of them?"
"We haven't filled the house yet," Sorel said. "I think we can find room for your box."
Henry's shoulders eased a little. He had imagined having to choose without knowing what would happen to the things he left behind.
"There will be work to do," Sorel continued. "Any house gives you plenty of that. But I am asking you to come as my student. Reading, writing, numbers, learning how things work. We will begin with what you know already and decide where to go from there. You don't need to arrive knowing the answers."
Henry rubbed his thumb along a seam in his coat.
"Mrs. Vautrin says you're good at reading now," Sorel added.
"Some things."
"What things?"
"The book we have. Letters. Most of Mr. Besson's slips, unless the writing is bad."
"His writing is bad," Mrs. Vautrin said.
Henry looked at her, surprised by how readily she had said it in front of their visitor.
"Sometimes the names look the same," he explained. "But I know the places, so I can usually work out which one he means."
Sorel nodded.
"Then you have already found one of the uses of knowing more than the words on the page."
He spoke easily, without the hurry Henry had expected. Outside, someone was telling the people near the wall to keep the gate clear. The voices seemed far away with the office door closed.
"Will I still have to find work?" Henry asked.
Sorel's expression grew attentive.
"To pay for living there?"
"And the lessons."
"No. Those will be my responsibility. There will be ordinary tasks you can help with, but you won't need to earn the price of your lessons before we can begin them."
Henry looked down at his boots. A thin grey line of dust lay along the seams. He had spent the morning delivering tools; there were more slips waiting on Besson's bench, though somebody else would be taking them now.
He could picture the jobs he would no longer be doing much more easily than the lessons that might replace them.
"What would I do all day?"
"We shall have to find out how much of a day you can bear to spend with me." Sorel smiled, then went on more thoughtfully. "There will be reading and work you can do at a table, and things best understood by getting up from it. You should have time to yourself as well. I can give you a list now, but until we've begun, much of it would be guessing. When we reach the farm, I can show you what I mean."
Henry considered this. He had never needed anyone to explain how to fill a day. Usually the difficulty was finding enough of it.
"Are there other students?"
"You will be the one I'm teaching."
That made him look up.
Mrs. Vautrin sat with her hands folded beside the open folder. She appeared to be listening as carefully as he was.
"Mr. Besson said you taught slayers."
"I have."
"Important ones."
Sorel's eyes creased.
"Several became very important. Some were quite certain of it before they arrived."
Henry tried to imagine one of the slayers he had watched at the receiving yard sitting in this room, waiting to be told what to read. The thought was difficult enough without adding the man opposite him.
"I can't do much with my talent," he said.
"I know."
"I can hardly move a grain of sand. Even when I try as hard as I can."
"I have read the description, Henry. And Mrs. Vautrin has told me there has been no change. You haven't misled anybody."
Henry had not thought that he had. Still, hearing it said allowed him to ask the question that had been growing since Besson put the slips away.
"Why do you want me?"
Sorel was quiet for a few moments. He looked at Henry without the searching expression the boy had expected, as though there were something important he ought to be able to see in his face.
"I was looking for someone young, with very little development in their talent, whom I could teach from the beginning. I heard that you needed somewhere to go. I had a place to offer, and the arrangement could be made. It was convenient."
Henry waited.
Sorel tilted his head slightly.
"That sounds rather plain when you have been sitting here trying to imagine an examination."
"I wasn't—" Henry stopped. He had wondered whether he would be asked to lift something. "Not an examination."
"Well, there isn't one this afternoon."
"But you want someone with a weak talent?"
"Yes. Someone whose teaching I can take my time with. I don't yet know how you learn, what interests you most, or which questions you will ask me. I would like the chance to find out."
Henry glanced at Mrs. Vautrin again. She gave him no answer on Sorel's behalf.
"I don't think mine will be very useful," he said.
"You can tell me what it does when we have time to discuss it properly. For now, I'd rather you didn't worry that I'm expecting you to carry my furniture."
Henry looked involuntarily at the pot.
Sorel followed his gaze and laughed.
"Or that. I've managed it this far."
The sound made Henry smile, though he was still uncertain what to do with the rest of what he had heard. He had expected there to be something Sorel wanted done, something he would know how to start as soon as it was explained. Instead, the scholar seemed content to begin without having seen him do anything.
Mrs. Vautrin reached for the sheet she had been writing on.
"Henry has friends he'd like to keep in touch with," she said.
"Yes. We were discussing letters."
Henry's fingers tightened around the corner of his book through the cloth.
"I've got the address."
"Then you can give it to them. And once we are there, we'll make sure you know how to send something back."
"Nadir already writes."
"The friend at the workshop?"
Henry nodded.
"Mrs. Vautrin tells me you've been visiting him. I'd be glad to hear about that."
He began with the upper workshops and the room where Nadir slept. Sorel listened while he described the narrow staircase, the leather hanging from the pegs, and the smell that clung to Nadir's clothes even when he came down to the orphanage. Once he started, it was easier to go on than he had expected.
He took out the purse to show the stitching.
Sorel held it by the edges, turning it so the light fell along the seam.
"He made this for you?"
"From pieces they weren't using. He did all the sewing."
"He's taken care over it."
Henry accepted it back with a small feeling of pride on Nadir's behalf. He was putting it away when footsteps gathered outside the office.
They were followed by a low exchange of voices, then a knock.
Mrs. Vautrin looked toward the door.
"Excuse me."
Henry recognized Ms. Aparo before she had quite stepped into view.
She stood behind two men, her eyes passing over their shoulders to find him. One of the men carried a flat leather case. His spectacles had slipped low on his nose, and he pushed them up as Mrs. Vautrin opened the door wider.
The other held a black top hat against his stomach.
Henry remembered that hat. He remembered Ms. Aparo bending as its owner passed them in the town hall. The man's brown overcoat hung open over a dark waistcoat, and a sheen of perspiration showed along the bare part of his forehead.
He bowed to Sorel.
It was a deliberate, careful bow, held long enough for the room to grow still around it.
"Armand Delatour, Third District Deputy of Bellevaux. It is an honour to receive you in Rocheforte, Mr. Sorel."
The man with the leather case bowed next.
"Émile Renaud. Director of Youth Affairs. I had the privilege of handling the boy's original placement."
Henry knew him now. He had sat behind the papers at the round table, reading Henry's full name and telling him where he would go. In Henry's memory, the room around him had been very dark.
Renaud straightened with his fingers resting on the clasp of the case.
Sorel remained seated.
"Did my message reach you, Mr. Delatour?"
The Deputy's smile paused.
"It did. We thought it best to bring everything you might require, so there need be no delay once you were ready."
"I said I would send word."
"Of course. We are quite content to wait."
Sorel looked at the three people occupying the doorway, then at Henry, whose purse was still in his hands.
Mrs. Vautrin moved her list farther onto the desk.
Armand Delatour was the third most senior official in Bellevaux's civil administration. His responsibilities extended far beyond Rocheforte. People who needed his attention generally approached it through appointments, letters and other people, and a personal visit from him would ordinarily have required the orphanage to prepare as carefully as it could.
Now he stood with his hat pressed to his waistcoat, waiting for permission to enter a room that contained three unmatched shoes and a child's boot.
Henry looked at Sorel again.
"Since you have come," the scholar said, "please let Mrs. Vautrin move out of her own doorway."
Delatour stepped aside at once. Renaud followed him into the room, leaving Aparo space to approach Henry's chair.
"There you are, kid."
He stood up.
She looked him over, taking in his face, the coat, the purse he was finally managing to close.
"You look well."
"I am."
"Good." She touched his shoulder briefly. "I was told the arrangements were being finished. Thought I ought to see you before you went."
Henry was glad she had come. He had remembered her hands pulling him to his feet outside the mortuary more often than he had remembered anything she said that day. Seeing her in Mrs. Vautrin's office made the two parts of his life fit together in a way he had not expected.
"I can read now," he told her.
Aparo's eyebrows rose.
"Can you?"
"And write."
"Then you'll have no excuse for forgetting to send word."
"I won't."
She gave his shoulder a little squeeze and let him sit down.
Sorel greeted her by the name Mrs. Vautrin supplied. He sounded warmer than he had when speaking to Delatour.
"You brought Henry here originally?"
"From the mortuary, by way of more desks than either of us wanted to see."
"We may have acquired a few of them again."
Aparo glanced at Renaud's case. He opened it without commenting.
"I have the original placement record and the papers needed to complete the transfer of custody," the director said. "Mrs. Vautrin will have some of the same information, but I thought it sensible to bring our copies as well."
He withdrew a folder and held it against the case. The room had become crowded enough that he had nowhere convenient to put either.
Delatour moved nearer the desk.
"And if there are any arrangements the district can assist with during your stay, I would be pleased to have them made. We had also hoped there might be an opportunity to discuss a few matters concerning your continued availability."
Sorel looked up at him.
"Has there been an emergency?"
"No. Nothing of that nature."
"Then my offer stands as it did before. Ascendant creatures and anything above them. You know how to send for me."
Sorel held no post in the academies or the Administration. He retained a commitment to Bellevaux: he could be called upon when an incident involved a creature of the fourth rank or higher. That agreement did not give the district possession of the rest of his time.
"We are grateful for it," Delatour said. "I only meant—"
"I understand. Today I came to see Henry."
The scholar's voice remained quiet. Henry could hear the irritation in it nonetheless. The cheerful interest with which Sorel had examined Nadir's stitching had gone, and his attention stayed on the Deputy until the man inclined his head.
"My apologies."
Mrs. Vautrin drew the folder out of Renaud's hands and made a space for it beside her own.
"I can find more chairs," she said.
"Thank you," Sorel replied. "Though I fear we may run out of floor before we run out of visitors."
From the passage came another voice.
"What's happened?"
Henry turned before Mrs. Vautrin reached the door.
Ivo stood just inside the entrance, with dust on the lower half of his trousers and one sleeve folded to the elbow. Tessa was speaking to him, pointing toward the office. Whatever she had already said had brought a look to his face Henry knew from the receiving yard, when something unfamiliar was being unloaded and he was trying to see past the people around it.
Then he caught sight of Henry.
"Besson said you'd been sent back."
"Mrs. Vautrin sent for me."
Ivo stepped closer to the office. His gaze went from the Deputy's hat to Renaud's papers, then stopped on Sorel.
For once, he had no question ready.
Sorel turned in his chair.
"Another friend?"
"Ivo," Henry said.
The older boy straightened.
"Good afternoon, sir."
"Good afternoon."
Henry had seen Ivo speak to slayers. Usually he managed to keep his voice steady until they were gone, and only then began arguing about whether he should have asked something else. Now his eyes moved briefly to the clay pot and back to Sorel's face.
"I was at the receiving yard," he said, though nobody had asked. "They said you were in the city."
"News seems to have travelled rather well."
Ivo nodded. He remained by the door, making himself narrower when Mrs. Vautrin brought a chair past him.
Henry looked at the inkstand she had set beside the folders.
There had been papers at the town hall on the day Aparo brought him there. He remembered hands moving them from one side of the table to the other, and adults agreeing about something that would happen later. He had spent more than a year living inside the arrangement they made.
Now the papers had reached Mrs. Vautrin's desk.
"When do we leave?" he asked.
Sorel turned back to him at once.
"Once we have finished what needs doing here, and you have the things you want to bring. Is there something you need time for?"
Henry looked at Ivo.
"I want to see Nadir."
"At the workshop?"
He nodded.
"I told him I would be leaving. Before, I mean. But I didn't know it would be now. He'll be working today."
"Mrs. Sen will let him stop for a little while," Mrs. Vautrin said.
Henry hoped so. He pictured Nadir at the bench, pulling a length of thread through leather, with no idea that anyone had arrived at the orphanage. Even if he had heard Sorel's name in the street, he might not have remembered why Henry had once written it down.
"I know the way," Ivo said. "I could go with him."
"Have you finished your work?" Mrs. Vautrin asked.
"For today. They only needed me until the wagon was unloaded."
Sorel glanced at the folders again. His expression changed as he considered them, and a little of the earlier amusement returned.
"Then that seems a sensible use of the afternoon."
He addressed Henry directly.
"Go and see your friend. Mr. Renaud has brought the papers, Ms. Aparo is here, and Mr. Delatour has taken the trouble to come in person. We can make ourselves useful while you are out."
The Deputy's fingers tightened around the brim of his hat. Aparo looked at the window.
"I don't have to stay?" Henry asked.
Renaud glanced at the uppermost page before answering.
"We can complete this part without you."
"You will come back here afterwards," Sorel said. "We still have things to discuss, and you haven't shown me the box."
Henry nodded, then stood without quite deciding to. The thought of telling Nadir had become suddenly urgent. He wanted to reach the workshop while there was still time to sit in the room upstairs, or walk a little way, without having to explain everything in the doorway.
Mrs. Vautrin went to her desk and took a small piece of paper from beneath the list.
"I'll write Mrs. Sen a note, so she understands why you've come."
While she wrote, Sorel asked Ivo whether the route was far. Ivo described the climb through the workshop streets, indicating two turns with his hand. Sorel listened, then looked at their boots.
"Walking, then. No need to run up all of that."
"We won't," Ivo said.
Henry put a hand into his pocket to check for the scrap with the address. It was upstairs, with his other papers. For an instant, he considered going to fetch it, then remembered the blank pages beside his fingers.
"Mrs. Vautrin, could you write the address again?"
She looked up.
"For Nadir?"
"In here."
He took out the blue book and opened it after the page bearing his name. She drew it toward her, smoothing the stiff paper beside the spine.
"You bought it."
"This morning."
She looked at him for a moment, then wrote Sorel's name and copied the farm's address from the placement document. Henry watched the lines appear beneath her pen.
Sorel leaned forward enough to see the little book.
"A useful size."
"It fits in my pocket," Henry said.
"A considerable advantage over most of mine."
Henry waited for the ink to dry before closing it around the pencil. Mrs. Vautrin folded the note for Mrs. Sen and put it in his hand.
"Give her that before you take him away from his work."
"Yes."
Aparo moved aside so he could reach the door.
"I'll still be here when you come back, kid."
He was pleased she had said it. He had been trying to think of something else to tell her, and now he would not have to find it immediately.
"Thank you," he said.
Sorel gave him a small nod.
"Take the time you need, Henry."
The passage felt wider after the office.
Ivo waited while Henry checked the note, then looked back through the doorway. Renaud was laying out the first papers. The Deputy had found somewhere to set his hat. Sorel moved his chair closer to the desk and asked Mrs. Vautrin where she kept her pen.
She closed the door, leaving them with Tessa and the ordinary noise of the house.
"Tell Nadir I said hello," Tessa told Henry.
He promised he would.
Outside, the watchman lifted a hand to stop someone approaching from the wall. Henry and Ivo passed him and turned toward the upper streets. Behind them, a man asked whether the scholar would be coming out soon. Henry was relieved when the watchman answered for him.
They walked without speaking until they had passed the next workshop.
"Did he tell you what you'll be doing?" Ivo asked.
"Lessons. Living there."
"With him?"
"Yes."
Ivo looked back once, though the orphanage was already hidden by the bend in the road.
"They were talking about him at the yard. One of the men thought there must have been a breach somewhere."
Henry shook his head.
"He came for me."
He had heard other people say it several times. Saying it himself still felt strange.
Ivo glanced at him. His expression was difficult to read, but after a moment he nodded and adjusted his rolled sleeve.
"Nadir will want to hear that."
Ahead, the road steepened between the workshops. An open doorway smelled of hot glue; farther up, a saw worked steadily through timber. Henry could remember carrying Nadir's bedding along this route, stopping to change his grip while Ivo complained about the slope.
He shifted the notebook to the other side of his coat, where it would not press against the note from Mrs. Vautrin.
Ivo matched his pace as they began the climb.