The deep midnight bells had ceased their tolling, leaving Annex 4 wrapped in underground quiet.
In the corner of the clinic, the cast-iron stove radiated a steady, dull crimson glow through its draft vents. It filled the air with the dry scent of burning hard coal. Arthur Vance sat at his scarred oak desk beneath the dim halo of a single hooded oil lamp, a clean cotton rag in hand, systematically wiping down the polished joints of his stainless razor-sharp bone hooks with light stone oil.
Across his chest, tucked snugly into the heavy fold of his dark woolen neck scarf, Pip was sound asleep.
The Scorch-Sparrow had discovered that the hollow beneath Arthur’s left collar bone was the warmest roost in the basement. Wrapped in the thick weave of the scarf, the fledgling radiated a steady thirty-nine degrees against Arthur’s skin. Every few minutes, a soft, shaking peep rang against Arthur’s collarbone as the bird dreamed, his tiny wire-braced foot twitching rhythmically against the wool.
At Arthur’s feet, Grimm lay curled like a fifty-kilo rug of black wire and black glass plates, his broad forehead resting flat across the toe caps of Arthur’s boots. His dark tail gave an occasional, lazy thump against the floor stones. He watched the outer edge even in sleep.
