The draft through the northern speaking tube smelled of cold willow water and wet wool.
Noll Vey kept his right stone palm pressed flat into the limestone witness rail, feeling the distant vibrations of the Raven’s Notch through the iron token sixty feet below the crags. Where his left shoulder ended in a jagged, unhewn fracture, the gray stone was cold as winter well-water, but the core chip behind his ribs pulsed with a steady, rhythmic heat.
Above the central aisle, the chiseled letters cut into the ancient arch flared with dull amber light:
THRESHOLD RESTRAINT HOLDING. TIME REMAINING: ONE HOUR TWENTY-EIGHT MINUTES.
“One hour and twenty-eight minutes, Master,” Prit murmured. The bone imp had climbed onto the corner of the clerk’s bench, his small skeletal toes gripping the oak moulding as he tilted his skull toward the ceiling. “The Last Guest hasn’t lifted its chin since the healer washed the boy’s arm, but its fingers are twitching against the cleaver. What did Vask say?”
“He asked what kind of watch could replace a siege,” Noll rasped, his voice echoing from the acoustic speaking conduits along the amphitheater walls.
Beside the evidence table, Lord Auditor Orin Vane did not look up from his portable register chassis. His hands remained folded over the brass lid, his gray wool cuffs neat and spotless despite the limestone dust in the air.
