Tavi’s breathing was a shallow, wild whistle, his small chest heaving under his soot-caked wool jacket.
He dropped flat against the floorboards. His back pressed was tight to the zinc apron of the table, his head tilted upward toward the arched stone ceiling as though expecting an iron crossbar to come crashing through the stonework. His fingers, wrapped in dirty cloth strips, were trembling wildly as he pointed a trembling thumb toward the high exhaust chimney pipe.
Len leaned over the edge of the table. His right hand gripped the ash shaft of his sounding pole, his knuckles white.
“My double?” Len asked, his voice low, hard, and stripped of breath.
“Your double,” Tavi whispered, nodding wildly. “On the upper narrow high walkway above Track Two. Just outside the switching shed.”
Doma picked up her heavy iron poker from the hearth rail. Her knuckles turned bone-white against the black metal. Her eyes darted toward the barred oak doors at the northern entrance of the undercroft.
“Is it running?” Doma demanded. “Did it come down the service stairs? If it tries the timber door, the copper sheet along the doorstep will ground the charge into the boiler casing.”
“It’s not running,” Tavi said. His dark eyes were wide and fixed on Len’s face with a strange, horrified fascination. “It isn’t running at all. That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s walking. Slow and steady, like a town clerk on a morning audit.”
