The braided flax cord had four copper wires running through its core, each one drawn down to the thickness of a horsehair. It hung from the brass crown of the arch like an unbaited weighted drop-line, dangling exactly four inches above the wet pine floorboards of the washroom.
Eren Tal knelt on an overturned animal fat firkin, his thick fingers working the brass shear-pin at the trigger block. He didn’t look at the arch’s curved threshold. He kept his eyes on the pocket spring-scale hooked to the leather wrist loop.
“Pull it again,” Eren said. His voice was gravelly from the cold river fog that had been leaking through the cellar foundation all morning. “Smooth. Like you’re stepping off an unpinned wagon tongue.”
Pella Rook slipped her right wrist through the loop. The bridle leather was stiff, freshly oiled with neat’s-foot animal fat. It smelled of tannery lime and old harness racks. She took two steps back toward the washbasin until the slack came out of the cord. The copper-and-flax braid tightened with a dry, stringy creak. She set her boots against the damp floor joints and leaned back with the weight of her shoulder.
The brass shear-pin clicked. The spring-scale’s brass indicator slid down its notched barrel, paused at three pounds, and snapped past the four-pound line. The release dog dropped with a sharp iron clatter that set the tin washbasin ringing on its bench.
