Prit prepared the pine worktable with the fussy, methodical solemnity of a bomb-maker who intended to live until supper.
First he had Cale carry the three newly stitched copies of the Book of Witness and Sella’s wrapped license over to the hearth shelf, well clear of the table. Next he asked Hobb for the heavy cast-iron Dutch oven lid from the kitchen and set it upside down in the center of the pine boards to serve as a blast dish. Into the shallow iron hollow of the lid, Fen gently tipped Edren’s Ore Flake out of its wool-lined pill-box.
The splinter of stone was scarcely larger than a broad bean—deep quarry-blue along one jagged edge, shot through with greasy grey silver-iron ore in the middle, and crusted on its flat underside with a dark crimson vitrified glaze. Set dead center in that red glaze was a tiny square indentation cut with three microscopic steps, matching the three square teeth at the tip of Ossa Flint’s bog-iron key.
“Hold the light steady, Master,” Prit said, climbing onto the stool beside the table while Tessa held a pair of blacksmith’s tongs over the iron lid to pin the flake steady by its grey ore edge. “And do not extend a single thread of your threshold sense into the iron dish. If there is a recoil snap in the red glaze, it must find no bridge back to your niche.”
