I went to Nessa for the key before the hall was up, because a keeper who is turned away at dawn can be turned away again at noon, and I would sooner spend the morning on the answer than on the asking.
She was at the counter with the day sheet under her elbow and the brass ring of keys on the nail beside her, and she did not look up when I halted before her.
"The paper room," I said. "I want the key."
"Which papers," she answered.
"The volumes before mine."
She wrote a line, finished it, and set the pen down, which is how she measures a question before she answers it.
"The keeper of the hall stores may read them," she said. "She may not carry a board out of that chamber, and she may not copy a leaf, and if she is found in there with a pen in her fist, she will be found by the elder an
