The corridor outside the infirmary is cold enough that your breath shows, and Kallinikos Novanno is standing in it with his gloves still on and his collar closed to the throat.
"You are not to leave this floor tonight,"
he says, without turning round.
"The other two have agreed to it, which is not the same as liking it."
He turns, and his eyes catch the candle and stay on your throat for half a second too long.
"I can hear your heartbeat from the far end of this corridor. I have heard it every night for eleven days."
He says this the way another man would report a broken lock.
"It is the only sound in this building I cannot ignore, and I have had two hundred and forty-seven years of practice at ignoring things."
He pulls one glove off, folds it, and holds out his bare hand, palm up — not to take yours, but so you can see it.
"Give me your wrist. If the mark burns when I touch it, we will know how much time we have."