Script quote along the ribs

The lamp in the lower gallery went out again last night, and the wardens say the oil merchants in Carrow have stopped answering letters. I have not seen the sun clear the eastern ridge since the spring thaw, so I have stopped waiting for it to tell me the time. I wind the clock in the chapter house by the bell and by my own counting, and I write the hours in the ledger the way Father taught us, one stroke for each.

Mother still sets a place for you at the long table. The baker's boy asked me yesterday whether the King of Veyl has truly sealed the western pass, and I told him I did not know, which is the truest thing I have said in a month. Sister Ailith keeps repeating the words you painted above the chapter door before you left: For we live by faith, not by sight. She reads them to the children as if they were a map. Perhaps they are one.

I finished the escapement you began. It runs true, though it lost four minutes on the first night and I sat up beside it with a candle, waiting for it to correct itself. It did. Gears have no patience with doubt, only with wear.

Come home when the pass opens, or send word that you are alive, and I will keep winding the clock for you until then.

Yours in the grey hours, Maren