The first stone struck the clinic wall.
It was small enough that Eli might have dismissed it as a thrown piece of gravel if the next voice had not named the envoy. He turned from the water table and saw a crowd thickening beside the yard gate. Some people had been displaced by the trial. Some had come from neighboring streets after hearing the alarm. Others were only trying to get home and had found another argument in their way.
A woman at the front held a medical cell against her chest.
“You said you had a backup.”
The man beside her shouted about dungeon sabotage.
She looked at him sharply. “I didn’t say that.”
He ignored her and called the accusation again, louder.
Eli put the buckets down. The urge to answer from the gate was strong: name the actual sequence, point to the witness’s position, force the crowd to hear what he knew. He saw Tessa coming toward him with three volunteers and stopped long enough to ask what she needed.
