The signal cabin was a narrow, two-story tower of creosoted timber and red brick, perched on an iron overhead frame overlooking the central throat of the Tram Ward switching yards.
It had stood abandoned since the second winter, its telegraph wires cut by winter sleet, its clockwork signal levers rusted into their side slots. Inside, the single room smelled of dry bat droppings, rusted copper wire. The cold, damp soot of a coal stove that had not been lit in ten seasons.
Bram Ash slammed the heavy oak door shut. He dropped a four-foot length of scrap T-rail across the iron brackets to bar the entrance. He stood with his back pressed against the wood, his chest heaving, his five-foot crowbar clattering onto the floorboards as he wiped a mixture of sweat and white bitter salt dust from his forehead with his sleeve.
In the center of the room, on a battered telegraph bench, Ivara Quill lit a single animal fat candle stub inside a tin lantern with punched holes in sides.
The flame was tiny, pale yellow, and shed barely three paces of light. But as the wick caught, the cabin was not filled with yellow light.
It was flooded with violent, blazing bright violet.
