The Letter with No News

Mara's letter arrived folded inside a carrier's account, because the ordinary post route to Sable Fen had become expensive enough that people shared envelopes.

Ada recognised her mother's hand before she broke the inner seal. The lines leaned slightly uphill. Mara wrote as she spoke, with little room for decoration.

The first paragraph concerned grain. The second concerned the weather. The third said Perrin had joined a winter work party at Slate Spur, where the Hall was preparing new anchor stones.

Ada stopped reading.

He was fourteen.

She read the paragraph again, looking for a word that would make the arrangement temporary in a harmless way. There was food at the camp. A portion of the wage would be sent home. He had insisted. Jon had argued. The foreman had said the work was sorting and carrying small materials, not cutting stone.

Ada imagined her brother trying to look useful while grown men assessed the strength of his arms.

The letter continued.

Ysra had received a second summons. This time she was required to attend a technical review herself. She had left two days before the letter was sent, under escort. Mara did not know which route they had taken. The workshop seals remained intact. The house was well. Dema had repaired the torn hem of Ada's spare coat and would send it when there was a carrier going the right way.

The house was well.

Ada held the paper flat on the table. Her mother had written around the fear, leaving its shape visible in every ordinary detail.

Neris found her there after the evening meal.

“What happened?”

Ada handed her the letter.

Neris read it, then sat down.

“Slate Spur is a supply camp,” she said. “Not a prison.”

“Can he leave?”

“I don't know.”

“And my aunt?”

Neris looked at the page again. “A technical review should be here.”

“Should be.”

“Yes.”

Ada stood so quickly the chair scraped.

“I need to see Hald.”

“Not like this.”

“How should I look?”

“Like someone who hasn't decided what she's going to reveal before she knows what he already knows.”

Ada stopped.

Neris closed the door.

For a moment, the room seemed much smaller.

“What did Ysra send with you?” Neris asked.

Ada's hand moved towards the notebook before she could stop it.

Neris saw.

“I haven't searched your things. But Hald has asked which books you use. He's interested in the spine of that one.”

Ada felt cold.

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I copied the order for your aunt's transfer.”

“Where?”

“Quarry House. East of the old slate workings.”

“Why?”

“The order says her experience is required for the preparation of difficult bearing sheets.”

Ada stared at her.

“They're making her bind.”

“I don't know exactly what they're making her do.”

“She can't feel half her hand.”

Neris looked at her own fingers.

“I know what that means.”

Ada sat down again. For several breaths, she could hear only the lamp's soft hiss.

Then she took the notebook from the chest and slid the reed from its spine.

Neris watched her unroll the old fragment. She did not touch it.

“That's a first-generation underlayer,” she said.

“You know it.”

“I've seen references. Not an actual surviving piece.”

“My aunt helped make them.”

“Yes.”

Ada looked up. “You knew?”

“Her name is in the old preparation records. I didn't know what she'd kept.”

Neris held the fragment against the light. The backward numbers appeared.

“This doesn't prove what they're doing now,” she said.

“It proves the system was hidden.”

“Most people in this building know there are underlayers. What they don't all know is how the new fixed capacities will be distributed.”

“Then help me find that.”

Neris lowered the page.

“If I do, I may lose my work. More than my work.”

Ada opened her mouth, then closed it. She had been about to tell Neris that people outside the Hall were already losing more. True, perhaps. Also a way to make another person's risk sound cheap.

“I know,” she said instead. “I don't have the right to promise you'll be safe.”

Neris studied her for a long time.

At last, she rolled the fragment back around the reed.

“The western survey leaves in two days. There are records at Salt Steps that don't answer to Hald. An engineer called Ren Shore keeps the old ferry and causeway measures. She worked on the first bearing systems before she left.”

“Will she help?”

“She may tell you to leave her alone.”

“That's becoming familiar.”

Neris almost smiled.

“I can make sure the survey list includes the damaged western anchors. That puts you close enough to ask. I cannot make the journey safe, and I cannot get your aunt out from here.”

Ada nodded.

Outside, a bell rang for the closing of the inner archive. Somewhere in the Hall, pages were being locked away for the night, their marks continuing to move people through the dark.