On Thursday the courtesy desk at the Canterlot Regulatory Authority had already stamped Item Six. By the time Lavender Bloom wrote that the night was not consensual, the stamp was dry, the cake was cut for everypony else, and her chair in the service alcove had stood empty through the serving.
The Third Lantern keeps its fellows' night in a hired room over Vesper Yard, windows on the Canterlot Royal Gardens, high table in the glass, low table by the hatch. Fellows are taken after three years in a trade. Rank that night wore a sash. Quillan Hart, the honoree, wore his at the window. Bramble Holt, the host, wore his at the head. Bloom wore a slate silk with a white stitch still showing in the left hem, and she was seated at Table C, the short-legged one, her back to the room and her face to the pots.
Her place card read "Lavander Bloom, willing." The program, eight pages, set that dawn and filed as a courtesy notice, listed her under Hart's name as accompaniment. Item Six sat between the soup and the pear cake. It promised "one natural hour, mutual, to be offered as if unplanned." The font on mutual matched the font on pear.
She left at the second bell. Holt rose with his glass after she was through the street door. Hart stayed at the window seat. The slice meant for Table C stayed on the sideboard under a clean cloth, and the card with the misspelled name stayed in the empty chair.
Mareline Verdict's report went in the next morning. It holds four slips Bloom sent to her colleague Ness Harl on the ordinary night thread. The first, at 12:40, said she was walking. The second, at 1:02, said the chair had faced the hatch and the card had answered for her. The third, at 1:14, was the one Verdict read into the book in full. "I have had the walk home," Bloom wrote. "The night was not consensual."
The fourth asked Harl to keep them.
Ember Hearth had the alcove. She pours for the low table when the Lantern hires the room, and she keeps her own book because the house book follows the program. "They told me the question was finished before I came through the hatch," Hearth said. "I was to pour the cooking bottle and go. She asked which door was the street. I walked her to it."
Hearth's book, shown to Verdict with the cloth still on the slice, has the street door in the margin and the time: second bell, guest out, Table C unserved.
Sable Merrin had the second chair from Hart, at the window, full bottle, name spelled right. She had wanted the fellows' night on a program for a year. "It was on the program before any of us sat down," Merrin said. "I don't see a midnight note undoing a stamp."
Holt's sash ended the night on the back of his chair. He told the table the stamp had come from the Authority, and that a stamp ends a question. "The card was a kindness," Hart told the pony on his left. "Once it's printed, it's mutual." Holt had the floor for a toast. The room went on with the pear cake.
Hart had wanted the hour in the program so the night would read as chosen. Holt had wanted the Authority's mark so the house could point at a desk. Merrin had wanted the window. The cake was pear and white frost, twelve slices, one held back. Bloom had wanted the street. She said so to the pony who asked her a question.
Verdict's entry lists the slips as received and leaves a finding to a later desk. The program, the card, and the server's book are attached. The Authority's courtesy desk confirmed the dawn stamp and called Item Six a filing. A filing, the desk said, is complete when the ink is dry.
The slice is still under the cloth. Hearth has kept the card. The chair at Table C faces the hatch, short leg on a folded program, and the last line in the server's book is in Hearth's hoof: guest asked for the street, guest given the street.
