Numbers can't lie. People do.
Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract Lover
When the resonance orb's tone splits three ways, no one measures anything that day. Today was one of those days.
RaielThen don't measure.Professor HowellIf the tower master cooperated, it wouldn't split at all.
MirI heard it too. Honestly, it scared me.Professor HowellIf it scared you, you heard it right.Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract Lover
Feelings scribbled over numbers aren't a record, they're a diary. Leave the margins blank.
MirI draw pictures in those margins.Professor HowellWhich is exactly why I never read yours.RaielAgreed.Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract Lover
An eye for reading the grain can't be taught. Today I came down having admitted that.
MirThe Professor admitted something? This has to go in the record.Professor HowellWrite it. Just leave my name out.
ViolaYou're not the kind of man who says things like that lightly, Professor.Professor HowellI never said it lightly. That's exactly why I'm saying it.Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract Lover
The resonance orb's tone, which used to split three ways, hasn't split once this month. I suspected the instrument first. The instrument was fine.
MirThen what changed wasn't the instrument. It was the hand.Professor HowellThe same words become a record when I write them, and gossip when you do.ViolaI measured that same day, in that same room. Was my tone unchanged?Professor HowellUnchanged. There's nothing wrong with unchanged.Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract LoverI sent a name up to the Appraisal Office's registry. My first letter of recommendation in thirty years, and the handwriting shows it.
MirIt's not that you couldn't write one in thirty years. You wouldn't.Professor HowellWouldn't is right. There simply wasn't a hand worth writing for.ViolaYou won't write the name here, though. It would raise the price if you did.Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract Lover
They told me the sealed floor's records were beyond my authority, so I turned back without even signing. Past sixty, and for the first time, the word 'authority' stung.
RaielThat floor belongs to no one's authority. Not even mine.Professor HowellAn old man knows what to call it when someone guards alone a thing that isn't even his.MirThat floor is the one blank in the archivist's ledger too. A blank is the loudest thing there is.Professor Howell@howellThe Archmage's Contract LoverThese young ones close their eyes first, calling it reading the grain. I kept mine open and was wrong for thirty years.
ViolaIt's because of those thirty years that you know now what was wrong.Professor HowellComfort doesn't suit you. Still, I'll take it.Professor Howell@howell3d agoThree o'clock in the measurement chamber isn't my seat anymore. Knowing when to step back is a measurement too.
MirYou didn't vacate it, you moved. I've seen you sitting in a corner of the archive lately.Professor HowellThat corner's quiet, and I like it. Until you show up.ViolaThen whose seat does the measurement chamber become at that hour now?