Harry Potter portrait tattoo on a calf

The wind off the Saltmere has been trying to take the roof of the tower since Michaelmas, and Master Corran says the tide-glass will crack if we leave it near the window, so I have taken to carrying it about in my satchel wrapped in my spare stockings. You will laugh, but it is the only thing in this place that hums when I come near it.

Last Thursday Brannoc Wyde and I were on the cold stairs with the lamp guttering, and Tamsin Hale, who never can leave a door alone, pushed the glass at me and said, look. Inside it, under the smoke, there was a shape like a man folded in on himself, grey as slate, and it turned its face towards the lamp as though it knew we were there. I lifted my ash-stick without thinking, and the tip took light the colour of a plum-skin. Brannoc swore. Tamsin just went very still and counted under her breath, the way she does when she is frightened and will not say so.

Master Corran says the shape is an old debt, not a creature, and that the glass only shows what has been left unfinished. I asked him what unfinished thing a grey man could be owed. He did not answer, only looked at the teal ribbon of sea-mist that curls round the rim of the glass whenever I hold it, and told me to mind my own business and eat my barley.

So I am writing to ask whether Grandda ever spoke of the Saltmere debt when he was still living, because he used to hum the same three notes the glass makes when it settles. Send word by the carrier. Tell Eda I have not forgotten her boots.

Your loving son, Piran