The air directly above the gray earthenware vessel rippled with heat as the remainder of the second gold bar began to uncoil.
Lady Signe Lorr held her brass student-lamp at arm’s length, her wrist braced against the wooden corner of her traveling desk. The yellow flame illuminated the curling edge of the gold foil, which was peeling back like dried birch bark under the gentle, persistent pressure of Sister Oda’s caribou-bone stylus.
“Steady, Sister,” Signe warned, her voice hushed. “The chancery script is beginning to separate from the cinnabar under-layer. Do not tear the margin.”
“The bone does not tear, My Lady,” Oda answered calmly, her fingers steady upon the tapered needle. “Bone has patience. It waited forty years inside a caribou’s shoulder, and it can wait three minutes for imperial glue to soften.”
Jon Hale stood on the left side of the table, his arms folded across his leather apron, his gaze locked upon the crimson text glowing in the rising steam.
With each millimeter of gold leaf that parted from the thaumaturgical matrix, the red light grew more intense. It cast sharp, jagged glyphs across the ceiling joists and bathed the sleeping form of Sir Cael Ardent in an eerie, blood-colored wash.
