"I wasn't going to say so," she said. "It's been fascinating. At first,

it was as if we were sneaking pies from the kitchens. Everyone wanted to

do the thing, but it seemed ... wrong? I don't know if that's the word.

It seemed like something we shouldn't do, and more tempting because of

it. And then once we started talking with each other, it was like being

on a loose cart. We couldn't stop or even slow down. Half the time I

didn't know if we were going down the wrong road, but ..."

She shrugged, nodding at the scroll in his hands.

"Well, even if you were, some of this may be quite useful."

"I'd hoped so," Eiah said. "And that brings me to something else. I

found some books at court. I brought them."

Maati blinked, the scroll forgotten in his hands.

"Books? They weren't all burned?" he said.

"Not that sort. These aren't ours," she said. "They're Westlands'. Books

from physicians. Here."

She took back the scroll and put a small, cloth-bound book in his hand.

One of the sticks in the fire grate broke, sending out embers like

fireflies. Maati leaned forward.

The script was small and cramped, the ink pale. It would have been

difficult in sunlight; by fire and candle, it might as well not have

been written. Frustrated, Maati turned the pages and an eye stared back

at him from the paper. He turned back and went more slowly. All the

diagrams were of eyes, some ripped from their sockets, some pierced by

careful blades. Comments accompanied each orb, laying, he assumed, its

secrets open.

"Sight," Eiah said. "The author is called Arran, but it was more likely

written by dozens of people who all used the same name. The wardens in

the north had a period four or five generations ago when there was some

brilliant work done. We ignored it, of course, because it wasn't by us.

But these are very, very good. Arran was brilliant."

"Whether he existed or not," Maati said. He meant it as a joke.

"Whether he existed or not," Eiah agreed with perfect seriousness. "I've

been working with these. And with Vanjit. We have a draft. You should

look at it."

Maati handed her back the book and she pulled a sheaf of papers from her

sleeve. Maati found himself almost hesitant to accept them. Vanjit, and

her dreamed baby. Vanjit, who had lost so much in the war. He didn't

want to see any of his students pay the price of a failed binding, but

especially not her.

He took the papers. Eiah waited. He opened them.

The binding was an outline, but it was well-considered. The sections and

relationships sketched in with commentary detailing what would go in

each, often with two or three notes of possible approaches. The andat

would be Clarity-of-Sight, and it would be based in the medical

knowledge of Westlands physicians and the women's grammar that Maati and

Eiah had been creating. Even if some Second Empire poet had managed to

hold the andat before, this approach, these descriptions and

sensibilities, was likely to be wholly different. Wholly new.

"Why Vanjit?" he asked. "Why not Ashti Beg or Small Kae?"

"You think she isn't ready?"

"I ... I wouldn't go so far as that," Maati said. "It's only that she's

young, and she's had a harder life than some. I wonder whether ..."

"None of us are perfect, Maati-kya," Eiah said. "We have to work with

the people we have. Vanjit is clever and determined."

"You think she can manage it? Bind this andat?"

"I think she has the best hope of any of us. Except possibly me."

Maati sighed, nodding as much to himself as to her. Dread thickened his

throat.

"Let me look at this," he said. "Let me think about it."

Eiah took a pose that accepted his command. Maati looked down again.

"Why didn't he come?" Eiah asked.

"Because," Maati began, and then found he wasn't able to answer as

easily as he'd thought. He folded the papers and began to tuck them into

his sleeve, remembered how wet the cloth was, and tossed them instead

onto his low, wood-framed bed. "Because he didn't want to," he said at last.

"And my aunt?"

"I don't know," Maati said. "I thought for a time that she might take my

side. She didn't seem pleased with how they were living. Or, no. That's

not right. She seemed to care more than he did about how they would live

in the future. But he wouldn't have any of it."

"He's given up," Eiah said.

Maati recalled the man's face, the lines and weariness. The authenticity

of his smile. When they'd first met, Cehmai had been little more than a

boy, younger than Eiah was now. This was what the world had done to that

boy. What it had done to them all.

"He has," Maati said.

"Then we'll do without him," Eiah said.

"Yes," Maati said, hoisting himself up. "Yes we will, but if you'll

forgive me, Eiah-kya, I think the day's worn me thin. A little rest, and

we'll begin fresh tomorrow. And where's that list of questions? Ah,

thank you. I'll look over all of this, and we'll decide where best to go

from here, eh?"

She took his hand, squeezing his knuckles gently.

"It's good to have you back," she said.

"I'm pleased to be here," he said.

"Did you have any news of my father?"

"No," he said. "I didn't ask. It's the first rule of running a race,

isn't it? Not to look back at who's behind you?"

Eiah chuckled, but didn't respond otherwise. Once she'd left and Maati

had banked the fire, he sat on the bed. The night candle stood straight

in its glass case, the burning wick marking the hours before dawn. It

wasn't to its first-quarter mark and he felt exhausted. He moved the

papers and the scroll safely off the bed, pulled the blanket up over

himself, and slept better than he had in weeks, waking to the sound of

morning birds and pale light before dawn.

He read over the list of questions on the scroll, only surveying them

and not bothering to think of answers just yet, and then turned to the

proposed binding. When he went out, following the smells of wood smoke

and warmed honey, his mind was turning at twice its usual speed.

They had made a small common room from what had once been the teachers'

cells, and Irit and Large Kae were sitting at the window that Maati