Warehouse Seven stood on the muddy bank of the East Crater Canal. Thick timber posts held up a black cedar roof. Twelve-foot iron doors faced the street, and three brass chimes hung from the eaves. They were linked to a warning charm over the entrance.
Pei Jing approached from the canal wall, forty feet above the water. At the north corner he reached out with his spiritual sense and found the line that carried the ward’s pulse. He touched it with his engraving awl and laid a loop of Chaos Qi over it. The chimes stayed quiet while he slid three shingles aside and went through.
The warehouse was eighty paces long, forty wide, and forty-five feet high at the peak. It smelled of dry pulp, gum, and oil. Bundles of mulberry bark, reed pulp, and pine shavings filled the first two aisles. Eighty barrels of binder oil stood against the south wall. Twelve crates of alchemy stock sat beside them.
He moved along the cedar beams. He took out the twelve blanks he’d brought from Cave Forty-Two. He cut one short channel in each and marked them with a little bile. They could anchor a ward across the rafters. They had no full rune pattern and couldn’t serve as ammunition. His wrist guard still held all thirty-six combat needles.
