Elder Maer placed seven bowls of salt before the Sixth Pane and removed six.
"A question is a door," she told Ilyra. "Most people swing it like an axe."
Queen Savel waited at the end of the hall with both hands hidden in her sleeves. The court had been dismissed. The Glass Choir had not.
Ilyra swallowed. "Who removed the sixth signature?"
The pane stayed dark.
Maer nodded once. "Too hungry."
"Was the sixth signature removed?"
The pane warmed, but did not answer.
Ilyra thought of Sable Bridge, the rewritten shop signs, the map drawing a border through a garden that had never belonged to itself.
"Whose silence kept the sixth signature useful?"
The pane rang like a bell under water.
Queen Savel closed her eyes.