Arsini came to his office on a Tuesday afternoon.
She said: *"Come and see the harbor school."*
Not: *I wanted to invite you.* Not: *when you have time.* Come and see. The direct register she used when she had something she wanted him to observe rather than be told about.
He went.
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The harbor school met in the storage room off the harbor master's office — the one he had identified months ago as available in the early mornings before the cargo work began. It was not a school in any sense he would have recognized from his previous life: no desks, no boards, no organized seating. A stone floor. Eleven children sitting in a rough arc. Thelon — one of the two junior scribes Arsini had recruited — sitting at the arc's open end with a smoothed board and a piece of chalk.
It was the late afternoon session. A second session had been added two months ago when the morning session filled faster than expected.
Lysander came through the door with Arsini and stood at the back.
