Tamsin Reed arrived in a wooden cradle barely wider than her hips, hauling herself along the maintenance cable beneath the bridge.
Felix watched from the eastern edge of Solitude Spire. He had expected tools. He hadn’t expected quite so many opinions about his character before breakfast.
“Don’t pull that rope,” she called.
He released it.
“Now you’ve released the wrong rope.”
Barnaby landed on the cradle’s upper bar. “Perhaps you should label them.”
“Perhaps people should ask.”
She reached the small service shelf below the bridge footing, tied herself off, and climbed the iron rungs to the path. Her coat was wet at the shoulders. A leather tool roll hung across her chest, and a coil of copper tubing bumped against her thigh.
Felix offered his hand. She passed him the tubing.
“Three silver for the inspection,” she said. “Repairs priced afterward. No payment in promises from Grandmaster Frost.”
“Was that a popular currency?”
“It had excellent circulation.”
He took three coins from his pocket. Last night he had counted the contents of the kitchen drawer twice, then stopped before counting became a new expense.
Tamsin pocketed the money and crouched beside the crack.
Rain had deepened it overnight. Beyond the timber replacement section, Valen’s barrier ribbons snapped across the academy landing. Two workers waited beside the district service stair with boards and a folded canvas shelter. Nobody was crossing the bridge today.
Not if Felix could help it.
Tamsin tapped the footing with a small hammer. The sound changed halfway along.
“What did you put through here?”
“More than I should have.”
“That describes most things people ask me to repair.”
He showed her the AetherDeck. Its star turned slowly beneath three short lines.
Ambient reserve: four measures.
Safe release: half a measure per breath.
Return interference detected.
He had rested badly. Every time the cottage settled, he had imagined a whole neighborhood dropping out of the sky. His breathing routine had collected almost nothing.
Tamsin studied the copper strip in the stone instead of his screen.
“Pass me the bent probe.”
There were six probes in her roll. All were bent.
She waited while he selected the least plausible one, then held out her hand for the correct tool.
“This feeds the bridge?” he asked.
“And something deeper. Look.”
She pushed the probe into a gap below the rail. A pale spark ran along its shaft, then spat sideways into a puddle. The water jumped.
Felix stepped back.
“Your release went in,” she said. “Most came out where you wanted. The rest tried to return through rotten work. Something below has been pushing against a blocked path for years. You gave it a shove.”
“Can we unblock it?”
“Yes.”
He breathed out.
“After we find it without dropping the bridge on my street.”
The breath had been premature.
Behind them, Lyra came down the path carrying two bowls covered with a plate. Her injured arm was tied close to her body. The cut had stopped bleeding, but she moved stiffly.
“Mara says you haven’t eaten.”
“Mara has developed a disturbing interest in my schedule.”
“She’s been trapped here since yesterday. It gives her a hobby.”
Lyra handed him a bowl and set the other beside Tamsin, safely beyond the tools. Rice, a little onion, and an egg divided with unusual precision.
Tamsin looked at the portions. “Whose egg?”
“Mine,” Felix said.
“Then eat it. I had breakfast.”
She pushed half back into his bowl with her spoon.
Lyra waited until Tamsin returned to the footing before speaking quietly.
“The wardens will come again.”
“Probably.”
“If I leave by the service cradle, you can say you gave me shelter only while the warrant was disputed.”
He looked across at the workers lifting their canvas against the gathering wind.
“Will leaving fix that?”
“No.”
“Then I’d be down one person who understands wards.”
Her mouth tightened. “I’m not offering to run away from a repair bill.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
He meant it. That seemed to make answering harder for her.
“Balthazar doesn’t stop at the person he wants,” she said. “He finds what makes other people helpful.”
“I’d be delighted to be less helpful. But I broke this.”
Tamsin looked up. “You helped break something that should have been closed months ago. Don’t get grand about it. Get that box.”
She looked toward the cottage. Her satchel lay inside, under the chair nearest the door. She had kept it within reach even while she ate.
“There are names in those papers,” she said. “If they’re found here, you won’t be able to say this was just a stranger asking for a bed.”
“Can the people named help repair a bridge?”
“Some of them probably could.”
He regretted the question immediately. She noticed.
“I haven’t decided who to trust with them,” she added.
“That’s allowed.”
Her shoulders lowered a little. She took his empty bowl, then caught his eye.
“I’m carrying this because I’m going inside anyway.”
“I wouldn’t dream of inferring a permanent arrangement.”
“Good.”
She took the second bowl as well, which he had enough sense not to mention.
By midmorning they had a plan small enough to be discouraging. Tamsin would brace the damaged footing from the service shelf. Felix would move tools and keep away from the formation. Lyra would mark every live copper strip so nobody drilled into one. Barnaby would carry messages across the gap.
“Carry messages,” the owl repeated. “Not sacks. Not hammers. Not passengers who consider themselves unusually light.”
Felix put down the small bag he had been holding.
“I’d merely lifted it for emphasis.”
They needed timber from the workshop behind the cottage. Felix followed Tamsin there and found her studying the bracket above its door.
“You made a hoist.”
“A laundry hoist. The roof gets good sun.”
A basket hung from a rope looped through the bracket. Beside it, a short copper circuit fed a spindle. He had tested it with three wet shirts, then six. It lifted the load, stopped at the knot, and waited to be unwound by hand.
Tamsin looked at the long beam on the floor.
“Don’t.”
“I was thinking about the toolboxes.”
“Then think about their weight.”
He tried the first box by hand. Heavy, but no heavier than soaked laundry, surely. He put it in the basket and touched the spindle contact.
The basket rose. The little circuit hummed exactly as it always had.
“There,” he said.
The basket struck the stopping knot. The spindle stopped.
The bracket tore out of the wall.
Felix caught the falling box against his chest. The basket hit his knees. Above him, the loosened roof gutter tipped, releasing a brown sheet of yesterday’s rain down his neck.
For one damp moment, nobody spoke.
Barnaby settled on the fence. “Your shirts appear to have become ambitious.”
Tamsin took the box from Felix before he could drop it on a foot.
“The motor lifted it,” he said weakly.
“The bracket didn’t.”
Lyra stepped over the broken basket and caught the loose rope before the wind pulled it onto a marked copper strip.
“You tested the thing that moved,” she said. “Did you test what it hung from?”
“I’m receiving the results now.”
Water trickled out of his sleeves.
Tamsin examined the torn wood. “You’ve lost two fixings we could have used. And I need that hook intact.”
That stopped being funny.
Felix put the basket on the fence and went for a hand drill.
“Show me where to cut.”
They salvaged the hook and one fixing. The other had split through its center. He put both broken pieces in his pocket so he wouldn’t forget to pay for them.
Lyra marked the sound wood with chalk, then helped him drill a new mounting through the post rather than the cladding. This time they used a hand crank and tested it with stones before loading tools. It was slower, safe, and rather irritatingly pleasant to operate.
Tamsin tightened the safety line around her waist before descending. The knot was neat, pulled hard, and checked twice.
“Does your family know you’re here?” Felix asked.
“Pell does. He’ll tell everyone else for a penny.”
“Your son?”
“Twelve. Currently convinced he can improve my accounts by charging for weather forecasts.”
“How accurate are they?”
“Depends how close he stands to the window.”
She tested the line again and looked down toward the terraces.
“Our workshop’s under that stair. If this comes down, knowing what happened won’t be much comfort. Keep the rope clear.”
Felix moved his foot away from the coil. When she climbed below the shelf, he watched the line instead of the height and fed it steadily through both hands.
The handle grew warm under his palms. He asked Lyra to check its mounting before the next load. She did, thoroughly, without making the comment he would have deserved.
By noon, three baskets had reached the service shelf without incident. Felix allowed himself to enjoy the fourth.
Tamsin called from below. “Stop.”
He stopped turning.
“Not you. The island.”
A low vibration passed through the soles of his boots.
Lyra knelt beside a chalk mark. A crack had opened through it. Farther along the footing, another mark stayed whole.
“This side is moving,” she said.
Tamsin climbed high enough to see. Her expression changed.
“Get your deck.”
It showed a reserve just above four measures. While they worked, the small intake loop at the cottage had kept collecting. Beneath the number, the output estimate flickered between half a measure and less.
“It’s choking,” Felix said.
“Don’t send anything through it.”
Tamsin pressed the probe against the buried strip. A red glow crawled through the copper and stopped at a blackened joint. She shifted the probe to the far side. The glow vanished into the stone below the island.
“There. Return path. Whatever the anchor sheds has to pass that joint. The bridge brace sits over it.”
“So we can’t repair one before the other?” Lyra asked.
“We can brace the stone first. We can’t pretend that’s the whole job.”
Rain began again, harder this time. Across the gap, one of the workers waved a yellow cloth. Barnaby flew over and returned with water shining along his brass wings.
“Stair landing is taking runoff,” he said. “They are moving their tools. The district watch requests an assessment of the bridge’s underside.”
“Tell them nobody goes under the timber section,” Tamsin said. “Nobody.”
Barnaby turned in the air.
A gust pushed him sideways. He recovered, but his wingtip clipped the barrier ribbon and rang like a spoon against a glass.
Felix looked west. Clouds had swallowed the farthest academy tower. The air smelled of wet stone and something sharp from the damaged copper.
“How much time?”
“Less if you keep asking.”
Tamsin gave him the crank and went back down the rungs. Lyra took the rope from his hands.
“You’re watching her. Watch this.”
Together they lowered the first brace. Felix wound the crank while Lyra kept the timber away from the live strip. Below, Tamsin guided it into the socket she had cut.
The brace seated with a solid knock.
For a moment, the vibration stopped.
Felix smiled.
“One thing,” he said. “One thing goes properly.”
Then the workers across the gap shouted.
The academy end of the timber section had shifted. Not much: the width of a thumb, perhaps. Enough to pull one railing post out of its socket.
Mara appeared at the top of the district stair below it. She had crossed by cradle to help clear the landing. Two workers were behind her, carrying a long chest between them. A fourth person crouched beneath the shelter, trying to drag its pegs free.
Tamsin looked up from the service shelf.
“Leave the chest!”
They couldn’t hear her over the rain.
Felix drew breath to shout, and the timber section dropped another inch.
The chest slid. Mara grabbed the nearest worker’s coat.
Beneath their feet, a stone slab began to lift.