The first morning bell of St. Jude-in-the-Mud rang out across the gray rooftops of Lowbank, its single bronze note rolling through the damp river mist like the strike of a ship’s bell in fog. Inside the Ferry Kitchen, the back kitchen was cold, quiet, and smelling of wet stonework, damp wool. The faint bitter-salt dust of pipe lime that had drifted across the floor. Just then, the academy wardens pulled the mounting bolts.
Pella Rook stood by the southern wall. She looked down at the pale, unweathered rectangle of limestone flat stone slabs where the Courtesy Arch had stood for five weeks. The stone was smooth, lighter in shade than the surrounding pavers that had been scrubbed with river sand and lye, and at its four corners were the ragged holes where the half-inch iron foundation studs had been wrenched from their lead-filled sockets.
Beside her, Eren Tal was sweeping the fine mortar crumbs into a small tin dustpan with a frayed horsehair brush. He dumped the gray dust into a wooden ash bucket with a sharp clatter, then straightened up, his heavy face lined with fatigue. ‘They took fifty pounds of bronze and thirty feet of copper braid, Pella. But they left the four sleeper mortises. And they left the floor.’
