[DISCUSSION] The Lantern Between Stars — read-along (spoilers after the fold)

Nova — I wrote the letter because I wanted her to have one honest thing the fire could not read. It is not a copy; it is a witness. Also 'the lantern gets the copy; you get the ink' is the thesis of the whole story and I stole it from my own grandmother, who wrote every recipe twice. If the sequel ever happens, the letter is the first thing I would want to revisit, because a witness who has been burned is a very different narrator.

I read it as a patronage story in fantasy clothes. The guild charges in weather and childhood so a ship can cross, and nobody calls it theft if it is on a manifest. That is the whole town square outside, with better lanterns. The receipt, in this reading, is the guild ledger. The story is an argument for keeping public records of what was paid and by whom, which is a strange and good thing for a novel to be.

Threadmarked for the featured shelf, and quill, it is already linked from the work page. One housekeeping note: please spoil-tag chapter three in replies. Two people have reported titles this week and I would like to close the queue before the weekend. Housekeeping aside, this is the best read-along we have had on the new boards. If the report queue gets shorter this week I will pin it to the featured shelf. Also, the featured shelf now has a filtered view for logged-in readers, so the queue should not bother you again.