Chapter 16: Seven Hours

I held the second court at noon, at the Well of Hours, and I made the seven stand in a row.

Seven of my sisters, in their robes of the Hours: Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Dusk, Evening, Night and Deep Night.

Wynne stood at my side with the Atlas's ribbon in her fingers, because I had asked her to keep my place.

The lesser gods filled the galleries above the water.

My father sat in a plain chair at the back and did not speak.

Maelis sat beside me with the lit ember in its cradle on her knee.

"The rule is simple," I said. "Each of you will tell this court what you did on the night I died. If you tell it true, you keep your Hour."

"And if we don't?" said the sister of Noon.

"Then your Hour goes to someone who will."

She was the tallest of the seven, with her hair in a hard crown of braids, and she had not wept once since the Rite.

The sister of Morning went first.

She said she had stood in the corridor and watched Thessaly turn the key, and she had told herself it was only for the night.

"I could have said no," she said. "I counted the other sisters and decided I was too small to be the one."

I wrote it in the Atlas, and the Morning Hour stayed on her wrist.

The sister of Afternoon said she had carried the lamp.

The sister of Dusk had fetched the sparrow from the garden to sing outside the door, so Thessaly would not hear me knock.

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