The wooden table in the corner of Sister Merrow’s washroom was covered in grease-penciled slate boards, yellowed town tax maps, and dark oak-ink notes written on coarse rag paper. Pella Rook sat on a low three-legged stool. Her brass measured tongs laid across an open ledger, reading through forty-eight separate work slips spanning the last seven weeks of Courtesy Bridge operations.
Outside, the midday rain beat a steady, muted tattoo against the high leaded glass. It ran down the outside stonework in dark, soot-streaked channels. In the kitchen next door, the muffled clatter of wooden spoons against iron cooking pots and the low murmur of dock workers taking their cabbage broth provided a steady background rhythm. A draft curled under the ill-fitting door. That brought the scent of coal smoke, damp wool, and the sour yeast of the river bakeries.
Eren Tal stood by the open doorway, sharpening an adze blade with an oiled whetstone. The rhythmic, scraping hiss of steel on stone marked the seconds. He worked step by step, applying two drops of linseed oil to the stone, sweeping the curved cutting edge in broad, even strokes, then wiping the gray slurry away with the corner of his leather apron.
