Halvard files for the near bank. He is twenty-nine and he was rank three in his own year and now he holds a scoring board like a man holding a door shut.

HalvardA student report goes through me before it goes to the Tower. I am a formality. I am the formality that decides whether a formality happens.

TamsinAnd do you read them?

HalvardI read every one. I am the only person on this bank who knows what the clerks are actually looking at, and I am not allowed to tell anybody.