The center worktable was four inches of solid, bleached mountain pine, ten feet long and scarred by twenty years of cleaver cuts, salt water rings, and dough scrapers.
A single heavy brass ship’s lantern hung from the oak ceiling floor beam directly above the center of the boards. Its wick was turned high, burning pure vegetable oil that cast a bright, circular pool of golden light across the scrubbed wood, lighting up the scattered tools that defined their current standing. Ivara’s rolled drafting linens, her brass proportional divider, Len’s shortened ash sounding rod, and a tin mug of cold chicory water.
Len stood on the north side of the table, his uninjured right hand resting flat against the pine, his weight balanced evenly over his boots. His left arm hung in its fresh linen sling, the rigid cedar splints held snug against his ribs. Beside him, Ivara Quill sat on an upturned fir box, her gray land-mapper’s cloak pushed back over her shoulders. Her single hand held an iron metal pen over an unrolled section of the town drainage grid.
Doma Reel stood at the head of the table, her massive apron dusted with gray flour, her wooden stirring ladle gripped in her right fist like a scepter.
