A bone-imp’s fingers did not sweat, which made chalk work cleaner in a mountain drizzle than anything a mortal clerk could manage with quill and ink.
Prit sat on the mounting block beside the free gate arch, his small yellowed leg bones crossed neatly, his rib cage rattling like dry hazel twigs whenever the wind blew up from the river. In his leather apron loops, the three chalk stubs rested in their stitched slots: the blunt white nub of everyday record, the hard square stick of red quarantine, and the sharp cylinder of grey audit chalk carried through the ruins of six masters.
Down the pass lane, Tessa Dene was herding thirty-odd men and women through the mist. She moved with her head down, her salvage-iron bread knife bumping against her thigh at every stride, her voice sharp as she kept the stragglers moving past the outer ditch.
“Keep your boots moving, Tomas!” Tessa called back. “Don’t stop to gawk at the picket line! If you stand in that ditch long enough for Vane’s brass box to hum twice, you won’t remember why you hitched your team this morning!”
Behind her, Tomas the carter hauled on his lead-mule’s halter, his face red with exertion and damp wool. Beside him came Edren Dene, coughing into his grey linen rag; Reeve Dena Holt with her town minute-book wrapped in greased pigskin under her arm; Mira the weaver; and five miners from the crushed drift.
