Rook

She was told to draw only what she saw. This was the first rule of the workshop and the only one the master ever repeated, usually while standing behind her with his hands folded, so that she felt the rule more than heard it. What she saw was mostly coastline: the long grey shoulder of the bay, the two islands that looked like one from the tower and like three from the pier, the sandbar that came and went with a…

Nine keys hung on the wall. The door had one lock. This is the sort of arithmetic that keeps a person up at night, and it had kept Ada up for three of them.