The footsteps paused outside of Eli's hiding spot.

He ducked his head in the cramped space behind the shelves of scrolls. Dust drifted through the sunlight streaming into the archives from a window high in the stone wall, and tickled his nostrils.

“… so we’ll give a useless job to a useless scribe," the Head Clerk said, from ten feet away, in the aisle between the shelves. "This is nothing but a waste of time."

Eli breathed through his mouth, trying not to sneeze. He'd never sneezed from the dust in the archives, not once in his six years there. He couldn’t start now.

"Yes, Head Clerk," Scribe Lynik murmured, in her soothing voice.

"And by useless," the Head Clerk said, "I refer to Junior Scribe Elishiv."

Behind the shelf, Eli winced.

"He's quite diligent, mir," Scribe Lynika said.

"Is that what he is?"

"He's studying two languages and his arithmetic is strong. He's--"

"Wasting his time learning languages!" the Head Clerk snapped. "He's the oldest junior scribe by ten years."

"And the only one who came to us as an adult. Considering his late start, he--"

"He should focus on his posture."

"Pardon?"

"You know we make a pretty penny renting the junior scribes as foot-servants for galas and balls.”

“I'm not sure if 'renting' is the right word," Scribe Lynik quietly objected.

"Bah! It took me years to convince the members of what counts as 'society' in this backward fortress-city that hiring scribes as servants was fashionable. Yet Eli hunches."

"Er," Scribe Lynik said.

The Head Clerk smacked his lips. "Like a crab."

He did not hunch! As if trying to prove the Head Clerk wrong, Eli straightened in his hiding spot … and knocked a scroll with his shoulder. The scroll shifted. Teetered.

And, to his horror, fell.

Eli snatched desperately at the scroll, but instead of catching it he punched it. The scroll hurtled away from him, clattered to the floor, slid for five feet, then bumped into the Head Clerk's embroidered slippers.

Silence fell, but not for long.

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"Come out of there at once!" the Head Clerk barked.

Eli sidled from the shelves, hunched against his superiors' disapproval. "So sorry, mirs. I was, erm …"

"Yes?" the Head Clerk snapped, his chins wobbling angrily. Even though he was skinny beneath his ink-brown robes, the Head Clerk still boasted an impressive array of chins. Eli had sketched them once, out of a purely intellectual interest. And he’d been caught, which hadn't entirely won the Head Clerk's favor.

“That is, uh …” Eli continued. "I was, ah, checking the pomegranate harvest numbers? And didn't see you there. Or hear you there. Or notice you. There."

"Like a crab," the Head Clerk muttered in disgust. "A gormless, pock-faced crab."

Eli opened his mouth to mention that, from what he'd read, crabs didn't hunch. They scuttled. Yet after a moment’s deliberation, he decided against. He didn't even suggest that 'a top-heavy sunflower' was a better metaphor for him. He just looked at the floor.

"We have pomegranate records?" Scribe Lynik asked him.

Eli lifted his head an inch and ventured a tiny smile. "Not exactly, mir, but I think I can extrapolate. I'm so close to charting a relationship between the Rust Moon and various natural phenomena. Well, not 'close' exactly. Not within a thousand leagues, actually. Still! Given that the rise of the Rust Moon weakens the wards protecting the valley, I continued to suspect--"

"When?" the Head Clerk snapped.

"When what, mir?" Eli asked. "Er, pomegranate is a winter fruit, so--"

The Head Clerk smacked his lips again. "When are you finding time to pursue this inane hobby?"

“Ah. In my free time?"

"You have no free time, Junior Scribe Elishiv. Your time belongs to the archives. And who is in charge of that?"

"You, mir?"

"Me." The Head Clerk thrust a letter at him. “This is your new hobby. Respond fully to the enclosed nonsense. I don’t want to hear another word of the matter."

Eli peered at the letter in his hand. "W-which matter?"

"Any matter!" The Head Clerk stalked away, but his voice echoed in the archives as he added, "And stand up straight!"

"Gods." Eli slouched in dismay. "That could've gone better."

Scribe Lynik touched his elbow. She was a comfortable middle-aged woman with warm eyes. She'd been kind to Eli ever since he joined the staff after he lost his position as a hayward's helper. And also after he’d lost his position as an apprentice cooper. Er, and finally after he’d lost his longest-term position, in the local militia, simply because he preferred discussing problems before bashing them about the head and neck with a mace.

"It could've gone worse," she said.

"Yeah, if I'd dropped a shelf on him." For a moment, Eli imagined the Head Clerk crushed beneath the shelves. "Though at least that would’ve offered a silver lining …"

She snorted. "As if you'd ever even wish for such a thing."

"I suppose not," he sighed. "So what's the story with this letter?"

"From the capital."

His eyes widened. "The capital capital?"

"Of course not, Elishiv. The provincial capital. Leotide City."

"Oh."

"It's just some upstart bureaucrat from an antiquated and insignificant office requesting information."

"Antiquated and insignificant?" he asked, teasing her a little.

Lynik sniffed faintly. "Her name is Brazika Savradar. She's the Steward of the Office of the Stipend Geld."

"I've never even heard of it."

"Of course you haven't," she said, teasing him back. "You're a half-educated farmboy."

"Er," he said, and didn't mention that he wasn't, in fact, a farmboy.

"But neither have I, that's how we know it's insignificant. Still, do as this Steward asks. There's no reason to anger the provincial capital—and less reason to anger the Head Clerk."

"Will do," he said, tapping the letter against his palm.

After Lynik left, Eli replaced the fallen scroll, brushed dust from his robe--far coarser than the Head Clerk's--and crossed the high, vaulted room toward a row of angled standing desks beside one of the more dimly-lit walls. The other junior scribes, some of them almost a decade younger than Eli, scratched at parchment, copying books for distribution and sale. And maybe even for advancing the general knowledge of the valley, though nobody seemed to care much about that.

He stepped to his desk and opened the letter.