1·01The ParcelChapter I · The Height of the WorldThe first contact in four hundred and nineteen years, and it is entirely incidental. Kyra is not looking at her. That is the whole joke of the frame.1·02Two Doors Down and Around a CornerChapter I · The Height of the WorldThey are not friends and will not be for most of a year. Put them at opposite ends of a courtyard, both aware of the other and neither acknowledging it.2·01The City ClimbsChapter I · The Height of the WorldThe establishing shot of the planet and of the series. No people needed.2·02Eleven Times a DayChapter I · The Height of the WorldThe ship is not the subject and must be small, far and undramatic. The subject is that nobody cares.2·03His Hand on the Side of Her FaceChapter I · The Height of the WorldA hundred-and-five-year-old man rendered in his thirties, who checks the time every ninety seconds, giving his daughter the whole of what he has.2·04The Queue is the PointChapter I · The Height of the WorldTwo hundred eighteen-year-olds pretending to be calm in a long stone room.
2·05The Kelith on the WindowsillChapter II · Polaris and SolaraAn object image and one of the quietest in the book. It stays on that windowsill for four years.2·06The Acoustics of a Stone DrumChapter II · Polaris and SolaraThe one unambiguously joyful image in the book.2·07That DavanChapter II · Polaris and SolaraIlen Vosse does not laugh. He is looking at her with undisguised, uncomplicated envy, and he has just put his fork down.2·07That DavanChapter II · Polaris and SolaraIlen Vosse does not laugh. He is looking at her with undisguised, uncomplicated envy, and he has just put his fork down.
2·08Four in the MorningChapter III · Something ComingAbsolutely nothing is happening and the whole book starts here. No effects of any kind.2·09A List on a WallChapter III · Something ComingThe driest exchange in the book.2·10For CasseChapter III · Something ComingThe most important stillness in the series, and this is its origin. Two girls on a path and one of them has simply stopped.
2·11The Long RoomChapter IV · The ArrangementRender the slab of light and a girl standing in it. The room is where the arrangement was made and she was not in it.2·12His Hands at His SidesChapter IV · The ArrangementNobody in this room is cruel and that is the whole problem. Teor is nineteen and has rehearsed.2·13Eleven Feet of Gravel and a WallChapter IV · The ArrangementTwo nineteen- and eighteen-year-olds on a step in a gravel yard, left alone on purpose, both perfectly aware of it.
2·14Four MinutesChapter V · The QuietIt is not hidden and it is not difficult and thousands of people do it every year. The whole image is an ordinary girl reading an ordinary reference in a public room, with her hands perfectly steady.2·15Above a Shop That Sold LampsChapter V · The QuietRepresent the chapter by the stair and nothing else. A girl going up an ordinary staircase on an ordinary street.2·16Eleven ChairsChapter V · The QuietThe quietest and most important image in the book. In the whole of Sethal there is exactly one kind of room where the name does nothing. There is no open door anywhere in this frame.
2·17A Man in an OfficeChapter VI · What a Sorin DoesThe most consequential image in the book has no principal character in it at all.2·18The Room Goes QuieterChapter VI · What a Sorin DoesNobody in this frame is being unkind, and that is what makes it unbearable. Doors held, greetings warm and brief.2·19Were You UnwellChapter VI · What a Sorin DoesThe best scene in the book. A man laying a way out in the open with both hands, and a girl who will not take it. He never raises it again in seventy years.
1·03NoChapter VII · Asking Rhone TellisNo contact. The accusation that starts everything, delivered quietly in a dark yard by somebody who is right.2·20Counting Something in the Equipment RoomChapter VII · Asking Rhone TellisA fourth-year who has heard everything about her and is declining to use any of it.2·21Fifty One Minutes No WordsChapter VII · Asking Rhone TellisThe trial. Two people and no conversation, and about two miles from home a long steady climb that hurts in a way she has not been hurt before.
1·04Crouched Down LevelChapter VIII · Cowardice Dressed as PrincipleThe single most important image in Set 1. Eleven people hear every word and none of them can afterward describe her as having shouted. Kyra is at Val's eye level, close, quiet and slowed right down.2·22Forty First out of SixtyChapter VIII · Cowardice Dressed as PrincipleRendered at the moment the field comes past — ones and twos and then a great mass. She finished forty-first with her vision narrowing and no memory of the last half mile.
1·05Six in the MorningChapter IX · The GrindNo contact and no conversation. Two people a stride apart on a cliff path, getting used to each other's breathing. This is how the friendship is actually made.1·05Six in the MorningChapter IX · The GrindNo contact and no conversation. Two people a stride apart on a cliff path, getting used to each other's breathing. This is how the friendship is actually made.1·06The SurgeChapter IX · The GrindThe entire relationship, conducted without a single word, as a question and an answer ninety seconds apart.1·07Coming Apart on the Long RouteChapter IX · The GrindKyra sees it from four strides ahead. Her legs turn her round and take her back forty yards and that is the entire process.1·08Four Squares of Pressed FruitChapter IX · The GrindThe tenderest thing in the book and nobody touches anybody. A girl who called her a coward in front of eleven people sits back on her heels in wet grass and watches her chew.1·09The Last Mile and a QuarterChapter IX · The GrindThe walk that the whole series dates from. Keep them a yard apart and keep them silent.1·10At the GateChapter IX · The GrindWhatever she says there is not in the book. Render the stop, not the sentence — a girl who has never thanked anybody standing at a gate looking at gravel.1·10At the GateChapter IX · The GrindWhatever she says there is not in the book. Render the stop, not the sentence — a girl who has never thanked anybody standing at a gate looking at gravel.
2·23Four Hundred ThousandChapter X · The HerdsThe arun are plain animals, not monsters and not designed. Big, low-headed, heavy-shouldered, moving at one unvarying rate.2·24The Young One at the BackChapter X · The HerdsThe origin of everything Kyra ever does. She was nine. Her father told her, kindly and correctly, that staying had not made any difference at all. She stayed anyway, every time, for the rest of her life.
1·11Nine Left in the Front GroupChapter XI · The Last MeetNo contact. The one image in the book of the two of them doing, well, the thing they are both best at, and it lasts about a minute.1·12Something Goes Wrong Under Her RibsChapter XI · The Last MeetNot injury and not collapse — not yet. A runner whose stride has gone short, and a face that has understood something about eleven days ago.2·25Two Thousand People in CoatsChapter XI · The Last MeetThe one thing at Corran Vayr the whole of Corran Vayr comes out for, and it is a cross-country race on a cold windy promontory.
1·13Eleven Seconds to Cover Forty YardsChapter XII · Out of SightRunning back down a cross-country course against sixty people is not a thing anyone has ever practiced.1·14Her Back to Two Thousand PeopleChapter XII · Out of SightThe image the entire series is built on. The first thing out of her mouth is not are you all right . It is how much can you move .1·15The DragChapter XII · Out of SightKeep it ugly. The prose says so twice. Nothing about this frame should be composed.1·16Eleven Feet Below the PathChapter XII · Out of SightThe whole point of the image is what is not in it. Two people alone on a slope with an enormous crowd noise eleven feet above their heads and entirely out of frame.1·17Doing Nothing at AllChapter XII · Out of SightNo contact. She does not hold her, speak to her, or touch her. She sits on her heels in the grass and waits, and that is the entire image.2·26Look Extremely BoredChapter XII · Out of SightThe funniest and cleverest image in the book: an entire crowd managed by one nineteen-year-old pretending to be uninterested.
1·18Nine Seconds at the CoachesChapter XIII · The ParadeAn invitation delivered in nine seconds while forty people carry boxes past. Neither of them makes anything of it.1·19No Sound Came outChapter XIII · The ParadeNo contact. Val at the back near the garden door with her hands folded, not moving for twenty minutes, watching a girl she has known for one term decide to be seen entirely.1·19No Sound Came outChapter XIII · The ParadeNo contact. Val at the back near the garden door with her hands folded, not moving for twenty minutes, watching a girl she has known for one term decide to be seen entirely.2·27The Room Asks in One VoiceChapter XIII · The ParadeNo officiant, no furniture in the middle, no ceremony objects of any kind. A hundred and forty people standing along walls in an ordinary house.2·28He Cried Three Separate TimesChapter XIII · The ParadeThe warmest room in the series. A house with all its doors open and the noise of a family rather than a function.
1·20I Dont Think Youre a CowardChapter XIV · The ArchiveNo contact. As close as either of them ever comes to an apology in four hundred and nineteen years, in either direction, delivered to the path ahead and not to the other person.2·29Three Hundred MilesChapter XIV · The ArchiveAn empty university on a promontory in a cold clear month. The two figures should be almost incidental.2·30Theyve Given Me a PlanetChapter XIV · The ArchiveThe last image in the book and the first thread of everything that follows. He is right about Dael and will be right for four hundred years and nobody will listen.
THE QUIETStudies & Variants
Alternates, studies and loose plates.
Screenshot, 2026-09-13Screenshot, 2026-09-13Cliff Path Variation 1 Ahead of the PackVariation 1Cliff Path Variation 2 Seaward EdgeVariation 2Cliff Path Variation 3 Eighteen MorningsVariation 3Intake Hall Variation 1 Long RoomVariation 1Intake Hall Variation 2 Near StrangersVariation 2Intake Hall Variation 3 Four MinutesVariation 3New Faces Variation 1TitledNew Faces Variation 1UntitledNew Faces Variation 2TitledNew Faces Variation 2UntitledNew Faces Variation 3TitledNew Faces Variation 3UntitledPath After Archive Variation 1 LaughterVariation 1Path After Archive Variation 2 Unnoticed ShipVariation 2Solveth House Parade DramaticUntitledSolveth House Parade
