They returned to the cooperage shed. Then, young Tavi was waiting by the door, wearing his short wool coat and grease-blackened clogs. His eyes were bright with excitement. ‘Pella! Uncle Eren! I ran the boat ramp three times in the dark! I can do the beetle tunnel in seventy seconds! Let me be the head runner!’
Eren Tal laid his heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder, kneeling down until his scarred face was level with Tavi’s. Eren’s voice was gentle, fully empty of dismissal. It carried the deep respect of an older craftsman speaking to an apprentice.
‘You’re fast, lad,’ Eren said softly. ‘Faster than any cart driver in Lowbank. But you’re not running that tunnel tonight.’
Tavi’s face fell, tears of bitter disappointment stinging his eyes. ‘Why? Because I’m only twelve? I know the bells! I know Hal’s marks!’
‘Because running in the dark is easy, Tavi,’ Pella said, taking his small, cold hands. ‘The hard job—the job that needs the sharpest eyes and the coolest head in this city—is sitting at the master float gauge in Sister Merrow’s washroom. If the runner brings a message from Station Two, somebody has to check the numbers against Hal Rook’s ledger and verify that the weir isn’t choking. If you make a mistake with a chalk mark, the runner’s sprint is fully wasted. We need you at the ledger, Tavi. That was Hal’s station, and it’s your station tonight.’
