Chapter 9: Receipts at the Gate

"It says, 'Forgive me, whoever you are,'" Nanami said.

She was still sitting up in the narrow bed with the quilt around her shoulders.

Dravan sat beside her, buttoning his shirt with fingers that would not work.

"In Japanese," she said. "That's my language. The Widow is from my world."

"She was my father's auditor," said Dravan. "Summoned, like you. I was too young to ask where from."

"And she's alive, and you've been paying her."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me she was human?"

"The Council's law says a summoned person lives in this castle or goes back through the Thrones' circle."

"My father signed an exception. If Seleth reads that pension, he can call her an escaped auditor and take her."

He looked at her, and his voice dropped.

"She asked to be left alone, and for ten years I left her alone."

"I want to meet her."

"Not while the Collector's guards count every boot on that road," said Dravan. "Give me a few days."

Her shoulders dropped.

"A few days," she said. "Then I knock on her door myself."

The bell at the gate began to ring while they were still dressing.

Not the slow evening bell.

The quick, hammering one.

Nanami reached the courtyard with her shoes in her hand.

Six wagons stood in the gateway, drawn by black oxen, with a captain on a grey horse and twenty Council guards behind him.

They were carrying hooks and ropes, and they were already walking toward the granary.

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