Technician Ren didn’t reach for the backup lightning bushing. He stood with his feet planted wide on the shaking granite coping, looked Davin Sorell directly in his bloodshot eyes. Then he reached up to the lapel of his sodden woolen work-tunic.
Pinned to his collar was the small scarlet wool ribbon that Pella Rook had given him during the joint safety review in the museum two days earlier. With a slow, deliberate, unrushed motion, Ren unclipped the brass safety pin. He pulled the red tab free. Then he held it six inches from the Chief Summoner’s nose.
“I’m pulling my tab, Master Sorell,” Ren said, his voice loud, clear, and steady beneath the howling gale. “Under Section Four of the Emergency Charter and Section Fourteen of the Town Trade Act, this platform is unsafe. The bearings are seized, the foundation is snapped, and the rig is unsafe. The shift is over. We’re withdrawing.”
For two seconds, Sorell stared at the scarlet ribbon as if it were a poisonous viper that had dropped from the clouds onto his coat. The idea that a mechanic—a grease-stained artisan hired to oil brass spindles—could pull a piece of wool and declare a royal master’s command null and void broke the last fragile moorings of his sanity.
