Chapter 12: Fifty-One Years

Nanami sat down on the floor of the cottage because her legs would not hold her.

Her grandmother did not come to help her up.

She only sat with her small hands folded on the counting frame, and waited.

"You're dead," Nanami said in Japanese. "Dad says you disappeared when he was five."

"I didn't die. I was summoned. Fifty-one years ago I was twenty-eight and doing the books for a toy company in Ueno."

Her voice was dry and steady.

"The old king's circle took me."

"He said I would audit his vault and go home. I signed on the last night of the month."

"And?"

"And nothing happened."

Tae looked at the window.

"I asked every year for fifty-one years. Every Collector said the same. Next season, madam. The line is being repaired."

Nanami's mouth was dry.

"The line stops short," she said.

"It has always stopped short."

"Seleth's circle. In the courtyard."

"Nobody has ever gone back, my dear," said her grandmother.

"Not me, not the auditors before me. The Council keeps the story alive so that every auditor signs at the full moon."

The room swam.

Behind her, Dravan made a low sound, and she realised he had gone down on one knee in the doorway.

"Teacher," he said. "You told me you'd chosen to stay."

"I did choose, after thirty years. It's different when you've been lied to for the first thirty."

Tae turned her glasses toward him.

"I never lied to you, Dravan."

"No."

"I only never told you."

Nanami got up off the floor.

"Why me?"

"The circle will only answer someone who can count and who carries my blood."

"Your father is fifty-six, and the circle wants someone young. You were the youngest."

"You looked at me through a magic circle," said Nanami, "and picked."

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