The first piece of ceiling struck an empty chair.
Eli heard the wood split and saw the woman beside it throw both arms over her head. Plaster broke across the aisle. The tremor pushed dust through the upper wall, and the main lamps swung in different directions as though the building had forgotten which way it stood.
“Leave your bags,” the local steward shouted. “The east aisle is clear.”
A human guard repeated the instruction. At the other end of the room, a dungeon guard called people toward the nearer service passage. Both routes led toward the same narrow outer turn. Delegates rose into each other, some following the first voice they understood, others stopping to find the person who had come with them.
Eli put a hand against the overturned chair and shoved it out of the aisle with ordinary strength. A clerk crawled away from the broken seat. Blood ran from a shallow cut above his eyebrow, too bright against the plaster on his face.
“Tessa!”
“I see him. Out first.”
She pointed him toward two local staff members and sent an assistant to establish triage in the open yard. Her instructions were short enough to survive the noise. Nobody was to wait under the ceiling for an examination that could happen outside.
