The cold coming off the dark riverstone doors did not feel like winter frost. Winter frost had an honest bite that made your ears ache and your fingers sting; this cold felt old and dry, like reaching into a grain bin that had been sealed before your grandfather was born.
Tessa Dene kept her right hand curled inside her coat pocket, her calloused fingers resting on the square horn handle of her salvage bread knife. She did not intend to draw it—iron against stone that had stood for six centuries was a fool’s errand, and her father had taught her never to dull good metal on bad judgment—but holding the handle kept her palms from sweating in the dead chill.
Before them, the carved face in the lintel hung over the dark porphyry archway, its grey slate eyes gleaming in the lantern beam like wet river gravel.
“Who approaches the Court of the Unbroken Word?” the stone asked again. The vibration did not travel through the air; it came up through the limestone flags, up through the copper wire binding the sole of Tessa’s right boot, rattling the marrow of her shin bones. “And what do the living seek from those who remember?”
