The rain drumming against the slate roof of the Ferry Landing back kitchen had settled into a steady, gray deluge that washed down the whitewashed courtyard walls in nonstop streams. Inside, the peat fire in the hearth burned with a quiet, glowing warmth, sending the rich scent of burning moss into the damp air to mingle with the smell of boiled tea and wet stonework. On the corner of the scrubbed deal table sat a half-eaten loaf of sourdough crust, beside Eren Tal’s three-foot wooden try-square and a bottle of black dark oak-ink.
Pella sat by the hearth, her knees pulled toward her chest. She watched the amber runes along the Courtesy Arch pulse with their slow, rhythmic breathing cycle. Senior Surveyor Korr Var sat across from her, his land-mapper’s pen scratching across a fresh sheet of Sea-court parchment, recording the minutes of the afternoon conference.
“Ben Morland asked the essential question, Pella,” Korr Var said without looking up from his writing. “He asked whether you would permit an artisan to leave during the city’s worst emergency. In the academy catechism, the answer is always no. The grand masters teach that an apprentice or an elemental spirit must be bound to the pillar until the work is finished or the body is destroyed. They call it sacred duty. In the Sea-court survey, we call it manslaughter.”
