Pella ran through the flooded streets of Lowbank like a hunted stag, her boots kicking up sheets of muddy water that drenched her skirts. She didn’t feel the cold rain whipping against her face or the burning ache in her lungs. She reached Sister Merrow’s washroom, kicked the heavy oak door open. Then she slammed it shut behind her, throwing the iron bolt into place.
The Courtesy Arch stood in the center of the room, its brass surface humming with an intense, vibrant blue light that lit up the whitewashed stone walls. On the other side of the shimmering oval, Jo Saye was standing beside a steel workbench in the Harrowby town depot, eating a ham-and-mustard sandwich from a tin lunchbox while wiping her grease gun with a blue cotton rag.
‘Jo!’ Pella shouted, falling to her knees before the brass doorstep. ‘Jo, I need you! The mill wheel split! Two boys are pinned under twenty tons of framing and the water is rising up their chests!’
Jo set her sandwich down instantly. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t hesitate. Her sharp, dark eyes scanned Pella’s soaking wet clothes, the terror in her face, and the desperate urgency of her voice. ‘What’s the load?’ Jo asked, her tone entirely skilled, clipping her sentences like wire cutters.
