The wind blowing through the eastern drainage cut was five degrees colder than the steam-choked halls of the tram sheds. But it tasted of iron filings, wet cinders, and rotting wood.
Tavi Rusk walked half a pace behind Peter. His boots splashed through the icy slurry that filled the ruts between the abandoned rail ties. He kept his head down, his wool cap pulled low over his eyebrows until the coarse gray fibers scratched his forehead, his small shoulders hunched forward to shield the front of his coat from the draft.
Inside his canvas haversack, nestled against four hard-tack biscuits, his fingers remained clamped around the cold brass rim of Deren Vey’s cracked bell. The soldered fissure was rough against his thumb. That tiny ridge of lead anchored his thoughts every time his knees threatened to buckle under the strange, terrifying pressure shaking through his ribs.
With every fifty paces, the amber light beneath his chest bone flared with sharp, electric violence.
It was no longer a gentle, warm pulse. It was a rhythmic strike, hitting the bone from within like a small brass hammer. Through the coarse weave of his undershirt, through the fustian of his waistcoat, and through the heavy wool of his outer coat, the golden radiance was leaking into the fog in faint, rhythmic crescents of amber mist.
