The pungent, pine-scented fragrance of boiled linseed oil, turpentine, and freshly cured pigment drifted through the double riverward doors of the Old Ferry Storehouse. It mixed with the cool, damp breath of the Gray Rush. It was mid-morning on Day Twenty-Nine. High above the timber framing, the autumn sun slanted through the whitewashed high window row glass in wide, golden bands that cut across the scrubbed floorboards. On the central work roster slate, the chalk outlines of past emergency deployments had been neatly cleared. That left only the quiet record of the morning check.
Tavi backed through the open threshold with his knees bent and his chin tucked tight against his collar. He carried the first of the three completed dining chairs in his arms. He moved with cautious, measured steps. He took care not to scrape the turned front feet against the granite doorstep. His sleeves were rolled past his elbows, revealing arms spattered with specks of Prussian blue and yellow ochre, his forehead glistening with honest sweat.
He set the chair down before the brick hearth with deliberate respect. It was a broad, substantial armchair built of dense lowland ash, its four legs turned on Eren Tal’s foot-lathe with simple, sturdy baluster beads. The armrests were four inches across, leveled flat as iron straightedges and sanded with dried horsetail rush until the grain gleamed like oiled silk. The entire frame had been painted in three coats of deep river-blue oil paint that matched the cold, deep channel of…
