Back at the cooperage workshop, Pella, Korr Var, and Eren Tal sat around the scrubbed timber table, examining their signed warrant. Outside, the rain was falling in heavy, upright sheets, drum-rolling against the cedar shingles.
‘We have access,’ Eren said, turning the parchment over. ‘The Council gave us the front door. But Sorell still holds the levers. If he decides to drop Gate Two while we’re standing on the lower narrow high walkway, our town warrant won’t stop twenty thousand tons of water from washing us into the harbor.’
‘That is why we don’t enter that vault as petitioners,’ Korr Var said. It laid his iron-tipped staff across the table. ‘Sergeant Kray is dispatching twelve armed watchmen to secure the upper control gallery. Every lever Sorell touches will be watched by two town guards with loaded crossbows. He can’t sneeze without it being logged in the city record.’
Pella opened Hal Rook’s service diary. That turned to the fold-out blueprint of the Third Gate’s internal galleries. ‘Hal mapped three distinct control stations inside the bridge pillar: Station One controls the main intake throttle. Station Two controls the bypass water chute. Station Three controls the balance weight release. If we’re going to power down this machine, we must have trained mechanics at all three stations at the same time.’
