The sub-level beneath the Gate Ward transit office was a low-ceilinged vault of dark, lime-crusted brick that smelled of old tax registers, damp sawdust, and sour chicory.
Len stood by the foot of the wooden spiral stair, his right shoulder braced against an upright cedar prop that supported the floorboards above. Overhead, through the two-inch tongue-and-groove pine planks, he could hear the muffled, irregular pacing of armed guards on the border canopy platform—the heavy, iron-shod boots of Morn’s loyalist customs militia walking the outer edge forty feet above the border highway.
In the center of the vault stood the long, zinc-topped counter where incoming couriers had registered their manifests for twelve years. Behind the counter sat Clerk Corin Petch.
The clerk had not changed his coat since the emergency mobilization began three days ago. His black wool town tunic was frayed at the cuffs, stained with circles of pale grease from fried ration cakes, and powdered with gray lime dust across the shoulders. A single tin lantern sat on the zinc counter before him, its wick trimmed down to a dull blue nub that barely lit up the two large leather-bound ledgers lying open on the zinc sheet.
Beside the ledgers lay the object they had spent six hours retrieving from the lower wards: the Gate city court override metal tube.
