The gravel crunched beneath Julian’s boots as he led the way down the dormitory porch steps.
The cold hit them like a wet sheet of canvas. It had none of the dry, sharp bite of winter; it was a clammy, river-borne dampness that carried the greasy smell of unrefined diesel fuel, wet printer’s felt, and hot red aniline ink. It seeped through the wool of Julian’s trench-jacket, settling into his joints with a dull, persistent ache.
“Keep to the center of the flagstones,” Julian said, his voice quiet against the wind. “Lin, keep your eyes on the stone borders.”
“I’m tracking them,” Lin Mei said. She held her brass inspection pole across her chest like a quarterstaff, her boots planting firmly in the middle of each rectangular granite slab.
“This path was laid in 1964. The border stones are mortared into the underlying bedrock.
As long as we stay on the granite, the earth is stable.”
“What about the lawns on either side?” Elena asked, walking on Julian’s right flank. Her gloved hand rested on the release lever of her cryocautery canister, her gray eyes scanning the dark, barren shrubbery.
“The turf is un-audited ground,” Lin explained, her breath pluming white in the yellow fog. “Under the 1964 campus landscaping charter, any ground not paved with certified stone belongs to the municipal commons.
