Before Sella and Tessa could step across the threshold ditch into the wind, Edren Dene called them back from the hearth bench.
“Wait,” Edren said, his voice scraping through his throat like a rusty rake over shale. He pushed the wool blanket off his knees, swung his boots to the flagstones, and reached out toward Prit’s hanging slate. “You can’t walk down to Drift Fourteen like two girls going to the apple market. If you don’t know which ditch carries the coal wash, you’ll walk straight into the headframe sentry box.”
Prit unhooked his small portable slate from the wall and laid it on Edren’s knees. The imp handed the timberman a fresh wedge of white chalk, bowing with the solemn courtliness he usually reserved for royal surveyors.
“A layout map,” Prit said. “One point of caution, Master Dene: draw only what was built with honest timber. If you sketch a room that exists only in a superintendent’s wish, the slate will reject the chalk.”
Edren grunted, wiped his chalk-dusted thumb against his trousers, and began to draw. His lines were blunt and heavy, the work of a man whose hands were shaped by twenty-pound iron wedges and cross-cut saws rather than clerkly rulers.
