The transfer of the brass Courtesy Arch from Sister Merrow’s kitchen back kitchen to the Old Ferry Storehouse was conducted at six bells in the evening, under a sky flushed with deep violet and cold orange. The arch was not transported in a covered academy carriage with armed riders. It was laid upon a low, two-wheeled ash sledge cushioned with clean straw and woolen blankets, pulled by four heavy cart horses from the timber basin and escorted on foot by thirty mechanics, laundresses, and guild apprentices.
The brass members of the arch—eight feet high and five feet across at the shoulders—gleamed dully in the dusk light. Along the curved bronze uprights, where academy summoners always drew nonstop, choking loops of compulsory gold leaf, the deliberate three-inch gaps remained fully open and clean, polished to bare, honest metal.
Pella Rook walked beside the sledge, her hand resting lightly upon the cold curved brass. Beside her, Eren Tal held the team’s lead-reins. His boots kept a slow, steady pace over the damp cobblestones of Fish Street.
Residents stood on their doorsteps as the sledge passed. Mira Os came out with her two-year-old twins bundled in wool shawls. She held them up to see the machine that had saved their cellar from the boiling steam. Hesta and three other washerwomen stood by the public fountain. He wiped their wet hands on their aprons and nodded in solemn, respectful silence. There was no cheering and no throwing of flowers. In Lowbank, people respected a…
