The seventh global day closed not with a sunset, but with a thickening, rotten-egg mountain fog that rolled down from the northern peaks, blanketing the entire five-mile basin of Rookvale in a freezing, wet shroud that smelled of coal smoke and wet slate.
Len Vey stood on the intermediate switchback between Quarry and Tram, resting his uninjured right shoulder against a mossy milestone marker, his pocket watch ticking steadily in his palm. It was one hour past midnight on Day Eight.
Around him, the province was locked in an exhausted, shivering silence. Three of the seven anchors—River, Orchard, and Salt—were dark, cold, and dead, their claimant cabinets decoupled from the grid, their local guards reduced to heaps of inert slate-gray ash. The southern and eastern skies were no longer a solid stone wall. The membrane had thinned to a bruised, violet haze through which the ghost of the mountain horizon was faintly visible.
Beside him, Bram Ash was cleaning the iron lock of his crossbow with an oiled rag. His bandaged shoulder was held stiffly against his coat. “Pell tried to talk to Doma an hour ago,” Bram muttered. “The judge wanted to stage a raid on the Star tower’s private larders. He said Morn has three tons of smoked ham and butter stored behind the quarantine gate.”
