Leave This Space Blank

Elin failed the palace examination because she had left seven spaces blank.

“A map should show what exists,” the examiner told her.

“Those spaces move,” she said.

He gave her the expression usually reserved for damp ink. By sunset, she was outside the palace gates with her charts rolled under one arm and three coins left in her pocket.

A man in a weather-stained captain's coat waited beside the fountain. The silver braid had been cut from his cuffs.

“You drew an empty square north of the Lantern Star,” he said.

“I drew it because my compass refused to cross it.”

He unfolded a newspaper. Where the observatory had printed the night sky, a neat white square interrupted the stars.

“That star disappeared an hour ago.”

Elin unrolled her rejected chart. Beneath her ink, a line of tiny gold writing had appeared: A door is not an error in the wall.

The captain looked over her shoulder. “Can you read that?”

She covered the words with her hand. Everyone at the examination had called her useless. This man had crossed the city to ask what she could do.

“Possibly,” she said. “First, we discuss my fee.”