Chapter 7
Twelve people signed their names to "one day more." They were the Month Wardens, each of whom kept one of the twelve months. On the night the black rain fell, they were the first to stiffen, and they stiffened the deepest.
People call them the Postponers. If the Held are those who stiffened trying to keep a promise, the Postponers are those who put that promise off. It is said that the Dregs of each region flowed out from its own Warden.
Yet that does not mean they were bad people. One of them, at the bedside of a sick child, could not turn the last leaf of the year. One was a child, who only stood before a gate as the grown-ups had told him to.
And another, out of care for her fellows, cut days from her own month and gave them away. That is why that month is short even now. The stories of the other nine still lie on the far side of the Torn Leaf.
Each time one Warden is unbound, one piece of the Torn Leaf returns to the Great Calendar. No one knows what will happen when all twelve pieces are gathered. Everyone's Morning has not come yet, after all.
End of chapter 7
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