The air between Vaska Ren’s extended fingers and the master test side didn’t explode or flash with dramatic light. It simply narrowed until there was only one permissible path left in the room. Before Merik’s boot heels could touch the flat stone slabs to lever the iron handle down, Vaska released his Sky-slit squeezing against the cast-iron locking pin beneath the attendant’s knuckles.
A sharp metal crack echoed off the vaulted stone as the heavy iron locking pin snapped cleanly across its shaft and wedged itself diagonally into the side teeth, jamming the master test lever half an inch below its neutral rest. The recoil jarred Merik’s wrists so hard he yelped and stumbled backward into the empty frame of the third bed. He grabbed his numbed forearms against his chest while the jammed lever hummed like a tuning fork.
Holding Senn’s wrist gate steady until the timber wright’s chest muscle caught a slow, shallow rhythm off Vaska’s own Jade pulse, the Chief Judge reached into his tunic pocket, drew out two thick copper thin wedges he had filed three nights ago after reading Mina’s notes on Pera’s release. Then he wedged them into the brass control valve collar at the foot of Senn’s cot. The thin wedges couldn’t heal Senn’s scarred heart spirit vein, nor could they replace the upper lattice. But they damped the sharpest spikes of the northern back-suction enough to give Vaska three minutes of free movement.
