What the Wall Leaves Out

Nessa stopped beside the public roster to pull a stone from her shoe. Balancing on one foot, she found District Seven on the sheet and read the entry: safe tonight. She tipped the stone into her palm, dropped it, and settled her heel back into the leather. There was still enough light to read by. Tavi’s doorway was farther inside the district, and Nessa started toward it with her repair kit knocking against her leg.

A pale thread spread along a joint in the paving. She noticed it without stopping, then looked back. It had branched around a stone and was whitening the grit on either side. By the time she turned fully, frost had reached her shoe.

The cold came through the toe, sharp enough to make her draw her foot back. Nessa looked toward the district’s edge. She shifted her kit out of the way and crouched to sight along the ground where the blue boundary should have been. There was no light there. She followed the paving with her eyes, checking beyond the patch of frost, then farther along. Nothing. Her free hand went to the fastening of her kit before she let it fall. She had not found a damaged stretch of ward. She could not find the boundary at all.

Frost crept into the hollow her heel had left in the grit. She stood, rubbing her fingertips against her palm, and looked up.

Across the open ground, the grain vault stood in clear view. A blue line ran along its base and around its corners. Nessa followed the line until she was certain what it enclosed, then looked back at the bare ground around her. The vault had its boundary. District Seven had none.

She drew breath to call Tavi’s name, but the doorway was too far away. The small useless sound caught in her throat. She needed her sister close enough to touch, close enough that saying come with me could become taking her arm and moving. Instead there was this distance still to cover, and frost spreading over the way she had meant to walk.

Her eyes went once more to the place where the district’s blue line should have appeared. Nothing had changed. The roster hung beside her, still legible in the dusk, but she no longer needed to check its words against what lay at her feet. Staying here through dawn would kill them.

Nessa pulled the kit tight against her side. She could see the protection around the vault; she could feel the cold entering her shoes. That was enough to tell Tavi. She turned toward her sister’s doorway and broke into a run.

“Tavi!”

Nessa called again as she ran. Faces turned toward her near the doorway, and she raised her voice for them too.

“The ward’s gone. We have to leave.”

Someone took a step forward. Another stayed close to the wall.

“They posted us safe.”

“Look at the ground.”

She had meant to keep running until she could take her sister’s hand, but Tavi was already looking at her. One arm was braced around a neighbor. With her free hand she signaled above the heads between them, then lowered it as the neighbor leaned more heavily against her.

Nessa slowed, holding out her own hand.

“Come this way. Both of you.”

The neighbor shifted a foot toward the edge of the doorway. Tavi bent with the movement, taking the weight, and for a moment Nessa waited for the other foot to follow. It stayed where it was. The neighbor’s hand closed around the jamb.

Tavi looked back at Nessa. Her free hand came across to steady the neighbor.

Nessa let her outstretched hand fall. She was close enough now to see how firmly her sister had planted her feet. Pulling Tavi away would leave the neighbor clinging to the doorway. Bringing them both a few paces toward her would only put them a few paces farther into the cold.

“Where can we go?” someone asked.

Nessa glanced back the way she had come. The vault was a long exposed walk even for someone who could keep moving. She looked again at the neighbor’s foot, still short of the threshold.

“There’s the maintenance passage,” she said.

That brought another resident away from the wall.

“The one into Six?”

“Yes.”

“Is Six safe?”

Nessa drew breath. She knew the passage, knew where it ended. She had been ready to give them the way as though that settled where they should go.

Beyond the doorway, Tavi adjusted her hold. The neighbor’s fingers loosened from the jamb, then gripped it again. Nessa could not send them through merely because the walk was shorter. She could see nothing of Six’s boundary from here.

“The roster—” the resident began.

“I need to check the plate.”

That she could read. It would tell her whether Six had protection tonight. Her fingers pressed against the kit at her side while she judged the distance she could cover alone against the slow shift of the neighbor’s weight.

“I’ll check Six,” she told them. “Then we’ll know whether to take the passage.”

She met Tavi’s eyes once more. Her sister remained in the doorway, both hands occupied now. Nessa drew the kit close again and turned toward the plate, setting off at a run before the cold could settle further into her feet.

Inside the vault’s protection, Nessa stopped hard enough to jar the kit against her hip. The cold still hurt in her toes. Halden, the appointed warden, turned toward her as she caught her breath.

“I need you to open the ward plate.”

“What’s happened?”

“Seven has no boundary. My sister’s there with people who can’t make the walk here. There’s a shorter passage into Six, but I need to know Six is protected before I send them through.”

Halden reached for a folded sheet.

“Seven was set for protection tonight. I inspected the setting at noon.”

He opened the record between them, holding it where she could read. Nessa found Seven, then the date and the time. Today. Noon. His signature stood beneath the inspection.

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her kit.

“The roster says safe too.”

“This is the inspection itself.”

“I can see that.” She put a finger beside the time. “I’m telling you there’s no boundary now.”

He held the paper steady, but his eyes left it.

“No boundary at all?”

Nessa pointed toward Seven. From here she could pick out the whitening ground where she had searched for the blue line.

“Look along there. The frost’s already inside the district.”

Halden moved beside her. She waited while he looked, resisting the urge to point again. He bent slightly, seeking a clearer view along the paving, much as she had done. Then his attention came back to the blue line enclosing the vault.

“That’s showing,” she said. “Seven’s isn’t.”

The paper lowered in his hand.

“It was set for Seven when I inspected it.”

Nessa touched the edge of the sheet. “Then keep that. We need to compare it with what the plate says now.”

For a moment he remained bent toward the ground. She could hear herself breathing, too quickly still, and shifted her weight off one aching foot.

Halden straightened.

“Yes,” he said, looking at the time beneath her finger. “We do.”

He folded the record with the written side inward. Nessa watched his hands. She had needed to make him look; she would remember that when he offered her another assurance. But he had looked, and the paper was no longer held between them.

“How many can manage the passage?” he asked.

“It’s shorter. That’s what I know. Tavi’s holding someone up just to get them over a threshold.”

“And Six?”

“I haven’t seen its boundary. I came to check.”

He listened closely to that last answer, without reaching to fill the uncertainty. Nessa found she liked the attention he gave it. The small pleasure caught her unprepared; she pulled her kit forward and settled the strap more firmly on her shoulder.

“I need the actual reading,” she said. “I can’t go back with another promise.”

Halden glanced at the repair kit, then met her eyes.

“I’ll open the plate for you. We’ll inspect it together.”

She had his agreement, and his noon record gave them something to check against. Neither would get Tavi through the passage safely until Nessa had read the setting herself.

“Six first,” she said.

“Six first.”

In the ward hall, Nessa bent toward the plate with her kit still hanging from her shoulder. She found the token marked Six seated in an active slot.

“Six is protected.”

Halden stopped unfolding his record long enough to look where she pointed. Nessa read the remaining tokens: One, Three, Four, Five and the grain vault. Neither Two nor Seven was there.

She lowered her kit to the floor beside her feet. Halden held the unfolded sheet next to the plate, and she followed the positions on the paper until she reached Seven.

The vault token occupied that slot.

“Here,” she said.

His free hand came up to the record, a finger resting beneath the entry. Nessa looked between the written name and the token. Then she leaned closer.

A scratch crossed the edge of the slot. The wear around it was dull and smooth; this narrow cut still had a bright, rough lip. She stopped her finger just short of it.

“That’s fresh.”

Halden looked at the mark. His hand withdrew from the paper.

“The setting’s changed,” he said.

He lowered the record and opened the housing. Nessa shifted to see the exposed edge more clearly. The tokens remained seated. From here she could follow the scratch to its end beside the vault token.

She crouched to open her kit and took out a pencil and a scrap of paper. Her toes hurt as her weight settled over them. For a moment she saw Tavi’s planted feet, the neighbor’s hand gripping the jamb. Six had protection; she had the answer she had come for.

She straightened with the paper in her palm.

Halden held the housing open while she drew the slot, labelled the vault token and marked the scratch. Beside the drawing she wrote the noon entry: Seven.

“Who had access to the plate after your inspection?”

He looked down at the signed sheet. Nessa kept her own paper in her hand while she put the pencil away, then folded it once and tucked it into her kit. She fastened the flap and drew the strap onto her shoulder.