At the eighth hour of the morning, Councilor Elna Vesk walked alongside Pella Rook and Eren Tal across the arched raised stone road that connected the Upper Docks to the Lowbank waterfront. The morning sun was bright. It burned away the last wisps of river fog. The city was waking up to a river that was finally behaving itself. Lightermen were poling timber barges through the cleared navigation channel, coopers were rolling empty barrels across the cobblestones. The bells of the river watch chimed the third hour of the day with calm, regular rhythm.
Councilor Vesk held a leather dispatch folder under her arm, containing two distinct town property warrants. She paused at the crest of the raised stone road. She looked up toward the shining white marble facades of the High Terrace. There, the academy towers rose into the clear autumn sky.
“Before we present the charter to the full assembly at ten bells, Pella,” Councilor Vesk said, “we must settle the physical location of the workshop. The Committee on Public Works met in executive session at dawn. The conservative aldermen, joined by several reform teachers from the College, have formally proposed that the Courtesy Workshop be housed in the East Wing of the Summoners’ College itself.”
