The sound began as a faint, dry clicking, no louder than the scuttle of a beetle across dry paper. Pella froze, her grease pencil hovering two inches above the slate. In the corner of the washroom, half-hidden behind a stack of clean laundry hampers, sat the old lead wash-basin. It had been disconnected from the town sewer line ten days ago during their first pipe overhaul, its curved lead waste trap left open to the cellar air, ending three inches above a dry sand bucket.
The hair on the back of Pella’s neck stood up. The sound was not coming from the room. It was rising through the hollow lead neck of the pipe from the deep bedrock beneath the floor. She stepped toward the basin, her soft cart driver boots making no sound on the sawdust. Beside her, Eren held his breath. His hand instinctively dropped to the handle of his iron pry-bar.
The sound was rhythmic, perfectly spaced, and clearly intentional. Tink... Tink... Tink... A four-second pause. Then three rapid, muted strikes. tap-tap-tap. Pella laid her fingertips against the rolled lead rim of the basin. The metal was icy cold, but it was humming with a sound hum that made her marrow ache. It was eighteen cycles to the minute. The exact time signed name she had felt six weeks ago in the academy check hall. Just then, the river-knight invitation had failed. That was because she had refused to drown out the water’s voice.
