Location:The Pavilion — The Workshop · Six Valleys of the Lower Realm
Date/Time:24 Flamefade 9943 AZI, Restday, dusk to the second bell after midnight
Realm:Lower Realm
There were twelve of them in the locker behind the second bulkhead, in two rows, in a case lined with something gray that gave under the finger, and Cangwei had watched the doctor lift seven of them out one at a time and lay them on the workshop bench in a line, as a smith lays out the tools for a job, and not one of them looked like anything.
A band. Dark, smooth, the width of two fingers. A flat face no bigger than a thumbnail, black, with nothing on it. They did not look like a thing that could keep time. They did not look like a thing at all.
"Nine," the doctor said.
"Setting," said Nine, from the far hall, at exactly the volume of a person standing beside her. "Seven. Six to go, and one for the wall. Now."
