Julian didn’t hesitate.
The red fountain pen was still clattering down the white marble steps of the Gate Zero lectern when Julian twisted his right wrist inward.
The motion was pure muscle memory. It was the exact economy of movement he had drilled through six months of graveyard shifts behind the register at Store Number Four.
He used the same fluid snap when canceling a double-scanned carton of milk on a jammed register belt. He didn’t cock his elbow back.
He didn’t pause for dramatic effect. He simply brought the blunt, chisel-pointed lead of Dr. Corvo’s No. 2 pencil down like a falling cold chisel.
In his pinned left hand, Thomas Vance’s 1996 municipal brass key slammed hard against the brass hinge plate of the Master Release Book.
Metal met metal with the dull, unmistakable ring of a shipyard anvil.
At the exact same instant, the graphite point dug deep into the yellowed paper of Line 1. Julian drove the lead across the parchment in a single, brutal stroke, bearing down until the cedar wood groaned between his knuckles:
