Ysolde Marks the Lamp

Ysolde Marr checked the Antswarm’s link with the reading lamp turned low enough to save it and high enough to see by, which at Gorse Hollow was now a matter of a hair’s turn. The ring-of-ants mark sat true. The weight of the work held. The gift was taken at three and an eighth coins and not a drop over. She went down the passage list line by line: most fares at two drops a span, one at two thousand, as if someone had paid for the whole boat and ridden in a corner of it.

“Fear,” said Dacey, copying. “Or hurry.”

“Or a slip of the hand. The Chain doesn’t say which, so neither do we.” Below the rich fare ran the great grey band, line after line alike. Ysolde wrote the band as the Chain wrote it, round and anonymous, and signed the link sound.

Then she lifted the lamp, tilted the reservoir to the window, and scratched a notch in the brass with her thumbnail where the oil truly stood. In the Rolls’ margin, where Wenna’s last entry claimed the lamp half full, she wrote in a plain small hand: a quarter, by my eye, this link. Dacey stared.

“It’s Wenna’s figure.”

“Then she can check me.” Ysolde set the lamp down and blew out her own candle, so only one flame burned for the next link.