Rowan left the new room with most of the field sheets still open on its table.
He took the southern account, the smaller notebook and enough clean paper to make the journey useful. Soren was downstairs, fitting an order into its wrapping. He looked up when Rowan reached the shop.
“Have you left me room to open the window?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll leave the rest where it is.”
Rowan put the return message with Thane’s name beside the door. He had given the intended route and the places where word could reach him. Tavin was waiting at the road with the other pack. Bren would keep the nearer household work moving while they were out.
It was late in Rowan’s tenth week in the Glenn. The marsh station and the southern island remained beyond the ground he had followed himself. He had their accounts, including recent additions, but he did not want to join the last part of the drawing from paper alone.
Tavin knew the roof above the wet road where they stopped that night. The following day took them among reeds, over narrow causeways and bridges. They examined the adjoining workings as they went and reached the marsh station by midafternoon.
The station’s books held separate drawings of water and protected ground. Rowan took both out with the local warden.
The station was smaller than Cresting Pass. Its buildings gathered on a rise, with a yard that received loads brought from the river. They spent the rest of the afternoon following the accessible reaches from it: the way to the landing, two routes used by people coming in from the marsh, and the points where the protection seated beneath firmer ground. Where the course went out under water, Rowan marked the last reading he could make from shore.
The channel had moved around protections seated in older ground. Tavin knew which boats could take each turn; the local warden showed them where people stepped ashore when those turns grew shallow. Rowan wrote both names on the sheet.
They took a boat to the island the following morning.
The river’s nearer banks fell away as they went. Beyond the marsh, the water opened so widely that Rowan could no longer place its opposite shore against the page. Mountains showed farther off, their lower slopes hidden by the nearer islands. To the east, the ridge country continued toward the water; the gentler shores and settlements lay in other directions, linked by landings and routes people already knew.
Near the mouths of the mountain rivers, the water had carried silt beneath its surface. Farther out it cleared, taking a different color under the same sky. Salt reached him when spray crossed the bow. The boatman spoke of another channel where the water tasted less of it after heavy rain. He used neither sea nor lake when he named the Wild Straights.
By evening they reached the island’s landing.
The station occupied a low stone yard above it. A few buildings stood behind the wall, with the ground rising into trees farther inland. Someone was carrying water through the gate while two wardens unloaded the boat. Tavin greeted one of them and gave her the packet from the marsh station.
A man came down the steps with a cloak over his arm. Wind had loosened his hair, and there was salt dried on one sleeve.
“Iven,” he said, offering Rowan his hand. “Thane wrote that you wanted the land courses.”
“And the places where they leave land.”
“We have plenty of those. Come up before the boatman gives you another load.”
The yard held an open space beneath its roof for work that needed shelter. Iven found room for their packs, then took them to the entrance above the landing.
“This first. You’ll want the light while it’s there.”
From the stone at the steps, Rowan followed the joining into the island’s deeper ground. Another course left the rock for open water. He marked where it passed beyond his reading.
Iven watched from the older wall. “That’s where I lose it too. Someone reading the water can take it farther.”
“Phia’s been helping me with the valley returns.”
“She’s read this side before. Ask her which account she left. There’ll be more than the one in the book.”
He looked up from the page. Iven had returned to ordinary sight and was watching the people at the boat. One of the landing wardens called to ask whether the load for the farther houses should come up to the yard.
“Leave it below,” Iven answered. “They’re sending someone.”
The woman pointed toward the trees. “He’s here.”
“Then give it to him before he decides we want it ourselves.”
Iven turned back to Rowan. “We’ll walk round tomorrow. Eat tonight. You’ve come far enough to begin by asking where the food is.”
They shared the evening room with wardens returning from the island’s outer reaches. Rowan recognized none of them, but several knew Tavin. The first questions were about people at the marsh station, then the roads nearer Glenndan. They passed the drawings round without bringing all of them to the table at once.
One woman asked Rowan to leave a copy of the upper landing approach. She carried supplies through there when the other way was wet, and wanted the first turn shown before the narrow ground.
“It is,” he said, turning the sheet.
She studied it. “Good. I thought you’d stopped at the steps like everyone else.”
The next morning Iven took them across the island.
The protection followed firm ground between station and households, leaving some shores exposed. Iven took them by the approaches people used. Rowan put each household beside its working instead of trying to read the island from the landing.
Beyond one of the houses, the course turned beneath a shoulder of rock and left land again. Iven brought out the older account beside their marks at the nearer face. It gave a continuation across the water, with another reading on the farther shore.
“Have you compared the ends?” Rowan asked.
“Yes. I haven’t followed what lies between.”
He copied the source separately. He had reached the southernmost station for which Thane kept the Glenn’s joined account. The kingdom did not end here. Other islands and shores remained beyond, with their own people responsible for the work. He could see why someone drawing from Glenndan might let this station become the end of everything on the page.
Iven sat on a low rock while Rowan placed the station, inlet and house in relation to one another. Tavin went farther along the shore with the woman who had asked for the landing drawing.
“Does Thane mean you to keep doing this?” Iven asked.
“For now. He wants the parts beside one another.”
“So do I. I’ve asked where one of these comes in on the mainland and been given three places.”
“Were they all reading the same course?”
“I’d like to find out.”
They marked the three references Iven had been given. Two named different standing places; the third might belong to another branch.
“I can put these against the marsh sheets when I’m back,” Rowan said. “Someone there may know which turn he meant.”
“Send me that, even if you haven’t settled the rest.”
“I will.”
They had meant to return to the marsh the following day. Wind kept the boat at the island, so they used the extra day to follow the remaining land approach with its usual warden. By evening Rowan had the accessible island courses together.
He left the landing copy before they went to bed.
They took the boat back on the sixth day and stayed at the marsh station. Before leaving, Rowan found one of Iven’s missing references: a reading from a stone uphill, written under a turn in the channel. He copied the correction for him and left the other two with the warden who would ask. Two days’ walking brought him home.
On the eighth evening, he let himself into Soren’s shop.
There was a lamp at the bench and an order opened beside it. Soren looked up, put down his tool and came round the counter.
“Back?”
“With more paper.”
“That sounds expensive.”
Rowan smiled and took off his pack. Upstairs, the field sheets remained open where he had left them. The window had been lifted from the middle. Soren brought water while Rowan put the wet things apart from the drawings.
Over supper, Rowan told Soren about Iven and the island. Soren knew one household from a commission; he asked whether they still had the doorway that had defeated his packing. Rowan had entered from the other side. He wrote the question down.
During the rest of his twelfth week, Rowan walked the last approaches joining the nearer circuits. With those done, he had followed the assigned Glenn routes accessible by land and taken the shore readings.
At Anet’s hollow, Phia confirmed that the pressure had changed since their earlier readings. Her signed account joined Bren’s in Thane’s book. Mare read the comparison when Rowan passed her shop; his wrist had stayed quiet through the journey. Olan would examine the deeper reach with them.
Submerged connections, buried joinings and winter conditions remained beyond the assignment he had completed. He marked them for later work.
Thane’s back wall had changed while he was away. Bren had added two household corrections. Est had pinned a name beside a house formerly marked only by its roof, and Cailean had left a diagram showing how three entrances served buildings Rowan had drawn as one.
He joined the island sheets to the marsh account. Across the wall, manufactured lines branched from the natural courses toward houses, wells and working rooms. Pickets marked their finer adjustments; gates, landings and names gave people a way into the drawing.
The sheets no longer fitted within the space Thane first cleared. They had taken the wall round the older map, with enough room left between parts to lift an account out without unpinning three others. He still disliked the gap beneath the river approach and the uncertain course beyond the inlet.
Cailean came for a copy of the lower landing account while Rowan was making one for Iven.
“You found him?”
“At the station.”
“Good. He’ll answer a question if he thinks you’ve gone there to hear it.” Cailean stood back from the wall, hands in the pockets of his vest. “Where are the two rooms?”
Rowan showed him Del’s yard.
“Not those. Beside the lower landing. The door between them stays shut, so people keep counting it as two buildings.”
He took a blank edge of paper and drew the entrances without asking Rowan for the charcoal. The small shapes shifted as he turned them, showing the approach from the lane and the landing. They were plain outlines, but the doors opened toward the right streets. Rowan watched, then brought the household account out from beside the map.
“You’ve put this one round the corner.”
“That’s where it opens.”
Rowan moved the entrance. Cailean let the diagram fade and put the paper beneath the corrected account.
“Give the next person that view. They’ll find the yard before they decide they’ve reached the wrong house.”
Cailean took his copy. Rowan put the corrected entrance beside its household account.
By evening the room had emptied. Thane stood beside the wall while Rowan finished the island references. He followed the mainland account to the shore, then checked where Rowan had separated Iven’s continuation from his own reading.
“You’ve been to the places we gave you.”
“The ones I could reach. The rest are marked.”
“I can see that.” Thane moved a chair so they could sit without the table between them. “There’s something I should have told you before now.”
Rowan put down the pen.
“I want to retire.”
He had not expected that to be the next sentence. Thane waited while he looked from him to the books still open on the table.
“From this?”
“From being the person every account has to reach before anything can be joined to it. I’d like to choose more of my work. There are things I keep postponing because I’m the one expected at this door.”
“And you want me to take it?”
“I hoped someone could. Vessa showed me your drawing, then told me how you worked beside the people at Cresting. That gave me a reason to ask for you.” He glanced toward the wall. “I wanted to know whether the work suited you here, and whether people could bring you something without needing me to put it into words first.”
Anet had begun coming to him without asking for Thane. Other people had followed. Rowan had treated each request as the next thing that needed doing.
“You’ve been considering this all along.”
“Yes. The work needed doing whether or not you stayed. I didn’t know what you would make of the Glenn.”
“I didn’t either.”
Thane smiled briefly. “That part has been interesting to watch.”
Rowan rested his hands on his knees. Vessa had offered him responsibility at Cresting Pass. He had understood its shape, and the people with whom he would share it. This work had grown as he walked through it, until even the map needed more wall.
“What would you keep?”
“We’d decide that together. I’m not going to leave you at the table with a collection of promises you haven’t heard. I’d like to walk some of the ground again without knowing that every change of plan must wait for me to come back.”
“The wardens have their own circuits.”
“They do. The Circle has its own work too. You know that now. Sometimes I bring accounts together; sometimes I find the person who can decide between them. When something needs doing quickly, I make the call and give people enough of it to act.”
“It won’t always be survey work, especially at the rate you’re moving. And I still have ideas for those maps,” Thane said. “You’ve spent enough years out at Cresting to know that. I need someone I can trust when there isn’t time to ask three more people.”
“And the people here?”
“They’ve been working with you. Several have begun coming straight to your door. The elders will tell you when they disagree. I’ve had plenty of practice listening to that. And your fellow wardens already defer to you when I put you in charge.”
He said it without resentment. Rowan could imagine Olan stopping a plan with one hand on the ground, or Phia asking which part of a reading he meant. Heticiaca had wanted to know who would carry the changed arrangement to Thane. None of them had needed him to give them authority.
“If I do this, I’ll still need you.”
“Good. I intend to be here.”
Rowan looked down at his hands again. He had wanted a place worth asking to remain. Now there were papers at Soren’s, a question with Phia, a drawing Corren wanted to see finished. He wanted a winter here, long enough to know the town by something other than the work that had brought him.
“I’m interested,” he said. “I want to go through the work with you properly.”
“So do I. Take time with what you haven’t seen from this room. We can begin putting those responsibilities beside what you’re doing now.”
They chose a morning when the current returns were expected. Rowan would sit with Thane and see how he made the decisions that reached the rest of them.
Thane stood and lifted the unfinished copy for Iven.
“Is this going south?”
“With the next carrier. I’ve given him the stone’s position. The other two references are still open.”
“Leave it with the dispatches when you’ve finished. It needn’t wait for me.”
Rowan added the last direction and put the copy where it would go out in the morning. Then he took his smaller book and cloak from the chair.
Outside, the lamps were being lit. He recognized the person leaving Del’s lane and stopped to ask whether the room’s entrance still answered clearly. She told him it did, then asked whether the island had kept him longer than intended.
“A day. The wind wanted it.”
“It does that.”
She went on toward her house. Rowan turned into the lane that led to Soren’s shop. There was light at the upper window, and another in the room he had taken for his work. He had left that shutter open before coming out.
He slowed long enough to place both windows on the page he had begun that morning. Then he went to let himself in.