The command gallery had been built to make its visitors look small. Copper tablets covered the walls from floor to ceiling, each engraved with orders, district names, and numbers cut so deep they held dark shadows. Yan slowed only long enough to read the nearest one as he passed.
Its heading named the island households assigned to the storm ward. Beneath that, a column listed the years taken from furnace operators. The language was neat and bloodless. A family’s labor and a person’s life had been placed beside the same line of figures, as if both were supplies to be shifted where the Registry needed them.
A clerk stepped into the corridor ahead of him. “Don’t touch the tablets.” His eyes moved to Yan’s stained sleeve, then to the fold in the air behind him. “Wuchen will call it theft.”
“I’m not taking them.”
“Then why stop?”
Yan followed the clerk’s gaze to a tablet bearing the current western command. The order number matched the copy in his robe. Beneath it, a fresh line directed the district to reconnect its damaged node. There was no new temperature reading, no inspection mark, and no sign that the families had been moved from the station’s reach.
