Out

The envoy of the slugs left on Monday, as it had said it would. The ledger would like it noted that in fourteen winters this is the first occasion on which a slug has done anything when it said it was going to.

"Nobody comes in," said Mungo, to the back of it.

"It is out," said Grizel, from the window. "There is a point at which going out becomes out, and it passed it a moment ago, at the edge of the last stone."

Six days, gate to gate. It asked for nothing on the way and was given nothing, which makes it the most successful diplomatic visit the ledger has on file, and the only one.

At noon Wick came out of the shed with a table leg in his hand and stood in front of the keeper, turning it over, and asked, as one consults a higher court, whether a table ought to have four legs, or whether three was a design choice.

"Four," said Kit.

He nodded once and went back in. "Nearly," said the shed, a little later, to nobody.

The terms of the hearing came at dusk, by beetle. Each party is to attend at the gate at midwinter and state who keeps the book, and why. Grizel read it aloud once. Then she read the last word again, on its own.

"What if we can't say why?" said Kit.

"Then it is a diary, and you are a guest, and the Provost takes possession on the twenty-first of December with a clean conscience and a clipboard."

There is a new page in the book tonight. It is headed "Who keeps the book." It is the first heading Grizel has ever written that is a question, and there is nothing under it.