The last line startles a laugh out of Door before the rest of it really sinks in.

"She must have been with him when we called her back," she says to Bridge, setting Chimney down on the bed with de Carabas' scroll beside her, so she can open the other one.

It's smaller, made not from writing paper, but a torn scrap of... a grocer's-sack, maybe, blotched with reddish-brown ink as if it was hastily spilled on one corner, then rolled up by someone whose fingers were covered in it.



When Door reaches the bottom of the note, she just stares at it, uncomprehending.