The red collar seal set into the center of Noll Vey’s blue claim-core had reached the temperature of a horseshoe pulled fresh from a blacksmith’s forge.
Inside his stone breast cavity, where flesh and lungs had once sat fifty-one winters ago, the heat radiated through the basalt ribs in waves of violet light that set the wool fibers of Tessa’s sleeve smoldering. The downward torque of Anchor 3 was wrenching his spine toward the flagstones with the steady, hydraulic pressure of a quarry crane, yet Noll kept his remaining right stone elbow hooked over the witness rail, his chipped basalt fingers dug an inch into the seasoned timber.
“Prit,” Noll croaked, a spray of blue mortar grit spilling across the oak. “Tell her... to slam the lock. The floor... is eating the nursery.”
Prit did not step aside.
The small bone steward stood balanced on the shaking rail, his three-toed bone feet gripping the wood grain like an osprey on a river spar. His cracked slate was pressed firmly against his chest with his left arm, while his right hand held the stub of grey audit chalk hovering half an inch above the stone. In his deep, hollow eye sockets, the twin points of blue candlelight burned with an obstinate, infuriating clarity.
