I eyed the letter Anora was holding out. I did not want to read it, because whatever it said was the end. I would officially no longer be a Witness for the Dead.

“Thara,” said Anora.

“I know,” I said and took the letter. I broke the seal and opened it, my eyes already skimming past the greeting. We are saddened to learn of your wounding, wrote the Archprelate, and will hope that your ability will return to you with time. In the meantime, we have an assignment in Amalo that is uniquely suited to your abilities. It is one about which we feel a certain amount of impatience and thus would be most grateful for your assistance in resolving. The courier is waiting for this letter, so we will send you the details under separate cover, but please do not fear. You are a loyal servant to the prelacy and the empire, and we will not reward your loyalty with abandonment. Have courage. And then the elaborate near-sigil he made of his signature.

I stared blankly at the letter for a moment, but Anora was waiting impatiently and I could see that his junior prelates were all listening.

“Well?” Anora said.

“It’s all right,” I said, and finally let myself smile. “I can stay.”

The Orshaneisei seemed mildly surprised that I had come out to walk their corn maze in the absence of corn—again—but they did not mind. One of the sisters guided me through the compound and left me on the back porch with a reminder to be out of the maze by sundown. She added, smiling, “I hope you will stay to share a meal with us,” and went back inside; I started along the pebble-outlined path to the maze.

This time I had to remind myself not to hurry. The point was not to finish the maze, but to walk it. I had made only three twists of the maze when I was overcome by a wave of grief so intense that I had to stop walking lest I stumble off the path. At first, I couldn’t even tell what I grieved for. I pressed my hands to my face and concentrated on breathing deeply and evenly, and eventually, like a swimmer in an alien sea, I managed to get my head above water and to make better sense of what I felt.