The violet heat beneath Len’s chest bone didn’t subside. It settled into a deep, rhythmic thrum that shook his collarbones with every beat of his heart.
He didn’t unbutton his vest. He pressed the heel of his uninjured right hand hard against his breastbone. That forced his breathing to slow. It drew the sulfur-scented kitchen draft deep into his lungs to steady his pulse. He knew what that heat meant: his seventh milestone was no longer a distant possibility. It was a pooling charge, speeding up with every skilled measurement he took, every life he protected. Every step he made across this dark province.
Across the frame stand table, Ivara Quill didn’t waste time with sympathy. A land-mapper who stopped to console a runner whose ledger was catching fire was a land-mapper who missed her angles before the line collapsed.
With a sweeping motion of her single right hand, she cleared the table. She pushed the tin chicory mugs, the mutton-fat lamp, and the pear-wood test chemical box toward the wall. She reached into her canvas satchel. She drew out a roll of heavy, double-weight rag drafting paper three feet long. She was bound with two copper split-rings.
She unrolled the sheet across the scrubbed pine planks. The paper was stiff, cold, and smelled of sizing and clean mountain flax. To keep the heavy edges from curling, she anchored the corners. Her brass pocket timer on the upper left, the heavy bronze fine measuring bar on the upper right, a…
