Chapter 23: Old Glass

The scaffold went up the inside of the east window in six tiers of rough planking.

Draconia climbed it in her second-best skirt with her heart going very hard.

Georgina went first, with a lantern.

Harry came behind her, with a hand ready at her back and no excuse for it.

Vivienne brought up the rear, whispering that she did not like heights and that if anyone fell she would be telling their families.

At the fifth tier the workmen's ladder stopped.

Beyond it, where the lead had been cut away, the window had a second skin.

It was a pane of old glass, set a hand's breadth behind the coloured one, and the dust of a long time lay on it.

"They found it at ten," said Georgina softly.

"The glazier thought it was a flaw in the wall. He called me because the village owns the lime."

"Why you?" said Draconia.

"Because I asked what the figures were doing."

She held up the lantern.

The light went through the dusty glass and the picture came up out of it slowly, like a face in a pond.

The upper window, the one the whole college knew, showed a Peverell with his hands raised, bearing the weight of the sky.

This one was different.

There was a sky, a wide blue-green sky pricked with seven small stars.

Under it stood two figures, a woman and a man.

She wore a dark gown, and he wore a pale coat.

They were not holding anything up.

Each of them held a wand, and the wands were crossed between them above their joined hands, and the sky rested on that.

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