Chapter 12: What Fin Is

It came out of the gate wearing a coat like Fin's.

That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was that it didn't have a face at all.

Just a smooth gray blank where one should be.

It stopped three feet from Fin and stood there.

The whole crowd was frozen.

Fin didn't move.

"Appraiser," the thing said.

"Warden."

"You broke the seal on a trial."

"I did."

"You broke it twice."

"I did."

"You've been in this Hall a long time."

"A long time."

"How long," the thing said.

Fin didn't answer.

"Say it," the thing said. "Out loud. For the room."

Fin looked at the crowd.

Then he looked at me.

"Nine hundred and forty years," he said.

Somebody in the crowd sat down on the floor.

Fin kept talking.

"I was a judge in a city that isn't there anymore. I judged a man wrongly and he died for it. When I died, the Hall took me."

"Took you how," the Warden said.

"Took me as its appraiser. I've been reading the living ever since."

"You've been reading them for nine hundred years."

"Yes."

"You've never once interfered."

"No."

"Not once in nine hundred years."

"No."

"Until today."

Fin didn't say anything.

The Warden turned its blank face toward me.

"This one," it said.

"Yes."

"You pulled him out of greed."

"Yes."

"You stood in the gate for him."

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