The Council of Monitors met by candlelight in the high vaulted conclave above the Great Sluice Crown long before the morning fog had lifted from the river gorge.
The chamber was paneled in polished black walnut, its ceiling arched with ribbed limestone groin-vaults that carried the dull, nonstop roar of thirty thousand tons of water plunging through the upper water gate gates. Around an eight-sided table of green snake-like marble sat seven senior teachers of the College of Summoners, their midnight-blue velvet mantles fastened at the throat with heavy gold clasps shaped like water dragons.
At the head of the table, Master Davin Sorell stood with his hands resting flat upon an unrolled parchment map of the Lower Wards.
“Technician Vane logged the first bending at one bell past noon yesterday,” Sorell said, his voice flat, icy, and perfectly modulated. “The backup pressure gauge on Sector Two dropped from seventy-four point two pounds of pressure to sixty-two point zero. It has remained stable at that level for fourteen hours. The transient back-and-forth swing has ceased. The drop isn’t a leak.”
Preceptor Kael, an elderly summoner whose trembling fingers were weighed down by three gold signet rings, leaned forward over his horn-rimmed glasses. “If it’s not a leak, Master Sorell, what’s it? A fracture in the bedrock strata?”
