The True Measure

ROWAN’S POV

She reads it the way a judge reads a confession, fast and flat and giving nothing back, and the old man drifts to her shoulder and reads it alongside her, and neither of them makes a sound.

I watch their faces for something and get nothing. They’re very good at nothing.

“Hm,” she says at last, which could mean anything.

“It’s a slowing draught,” I say, because the silence is unbearable