The emergency command of Lowbank Sector Seven was officially ended at twelve minutes past eleven o’clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh day. The formal shift took place not in the gold-trimmed council chambers of the High Terrace, but in the small, whitewashed watchman’s shelter that clung to the limestone cliff just above the Roman undercroft of Station Gamma.
The shelter smelled of cold tobacco smoke, wet wool. The bitter, invigorating aroma of chicory coffee boiling on a small cast-iron charcoal stove in the corner. Across the scarred deal table, Corvin Hest had laid out the formal Municipal Handover Ledger. A heavy folio bound in pigskin and stamped with the town seal. On the right-hand page, the signed names of the emergency defense council were already dry: Pella Rook, Eren Tal, Sister Merrow, Master Garrow, and Renn Vos.
Inspector Korr Var stood on the other side of the table, his heavy wool overcoat unbuttoned to reveal his brass checker’s badge pinned to his waistcoat. Beside him stood Jory, an eighteen-year-old apprentice lockkeeper whose face was pale with nervous seriousness. Jory had his sleeves rolled to his elbows. Then he carried a newly sharpened cedar pencil tucked behind his ear. His fingers grabbed a clean brass-edged duty slate. The cuffs of his heavy trousers were dusted with white pipe lime from his morning rounds through the lower galleries.
