32

The room is a small box like a friar's cell, and nearly as spartan. A wall candle-sconce and two arrow slits in the stone provide the only light. An empty chair faces a nearly empty desk with a neat rack of scrolls on one side and an ink-pot on the other. In a high-backed chair jutting with arrowhead-shaped adornments on its top rail sits—

"Wait," says Malodoro without looking up.

Onward