The metal clink of forged bronze wrenches against hex-head bolts echoed through the damp silence of the back kitchen as Eren Tal and Apprentice Dima step by step uncoupled the Courtesy Arch from its foundation sleepers. Eren worked with slow, deliberate care. His heavy jaw set was tight, his hands treating every piece of polished metal with respectful care.
Beside them, Captain Kray and four academy wardens stood with a heavy four-wheeled hand-trolley padded with horsehair blankets. Outside in the alley, sixty timber wagon drivers and lightermen stood four deep in the drizzling rain. They watched through the open door in stony, menacing silence.
‘Piece number one,’ Eren announced, his gravelly voice flat as he lifted the heavy curved crown top door beam from the uprights. ‘Glowing-bronze header, forty-two inches wide, bearing the main glyph tracks. Dima, stamp the inventory number on the thick parchment tag.’
Dima dipped his brass punch into black dark oak-ink, stamping the thick parchment tag with trembling fingers before tying it to the bronze pipe rim with waxed marline. COMPONENT 01 · CROWN LINTEL · Approved INTACT.
Pella Rook stood beside the back kitchen table, Hal Rook’s brass measuring tongs in her belt, recording each component in the master ledger. Her smock was stiff with dried water-setting grout from yesterday’s work, but her stance was straight and unbending.
