The words were spoken quietly. But they settled into the timbers of the tram shed like an iron bolt driven into seasoned oak.
Len took a slow, deep breath through his nose, his lungs expanding against the tight linen bandage wrapped around his cracked ribs. The pain was sharp. It caught him at the bottom of the breath. But it no longer felt like a solitary shame he had to hide beneath his coat. It was simply a body measurement. A clockwork limitation to be factored into the transit counts, exactly like the missing teeth on a gear or the maximum pressure head on a lead pipe.
Doma didn’t release his hand right away. She held his knuckles enclosed within her calloused palm for three long heartbeats, searching his grey eyes for the faint flicker of evasion that young men used when they meant to play the martyr anyway. Whatever she saw in the set of his jaw seemed to satisfy her. The iron tension in her shoulders loosened slightly, her thick fingers slipping away to rest upon her apron bib.
“Keep the token in your waistcoat,” she said, her voice returning to its normal raspy, kitchen rhythm. “Not in your pouch with the waybills. In your waistcoat pocket, right next to your ribs. If you tumble into a drainage cut and your leather bag is swept downstream, your fingers must know where the brass sits without you having to look.”
