Location:The Ironspine — a secret house above the pass · Kaelport — The Long Shed · Tiller's Row
Date/Time:17–21 Flamefade 9943 AZI, Grindday night to Temperday (outside)
Realm:Lower Realm
Eleven hundred and forty-two was the sum. Jayde had added the six rings on the workshop wall three times before she let herself write the sum under them, and when she had written it she stood and looked at it, and the chalk had snapped in her fingers without her knowing she was gripping it.
Cangwei had said four hundred, perhaps five, and marked it as a guess, and nobody in the room had thought she was wrong. The cats and the quintet had counted what they could see from a ridge or a hedge: one hall at one meal, one yard at one bell. The low buildings had held the rest. Bunks three high. Children sleeping two to a bunk. Eleven hundred and forty-two children in six valleys.
