CRACK-SHATTER.
The instant Jon Hale tore his ten frost-numbed fingers free of the pewter basin and stepped across the smeared line of cold-iron filings that Sister Oda had kicked open at the east mark, the quarter-inch rime of white ice coating the outside of the bowl split into a hundred glittering shards and fell clinking onto the oak tabletop.
Above the dish, the slate-blue letters of the municipal stone-script—which had stood one minute away from locking the Returner Seal into the permanent custody of the River Lantern—shivered once from end to end, fractured into jagged horizontal lines of pale blue static, and flashed a single closing administrative record across the smoke-filled room:
CUSTODIAL MIGRATION INTERRUPTED BY KEEPER AT 80% THERMAL LOAD DECOUPLED FROM FURNACE ESCAPEMENT KEEPER PETITION RECEIVED — LOGGED IN BEDROCK LEDGER
Inside the soapstone basin, the half-submerged gold disc of the Returner Seal dropped back down against the grey stone lining with a dull clink. The blinding white steam that had boiled off its bevel vanished instantly; the four-fifths of its surface that had turned to dark municipal slate-blue dimmed to a weathered, tarnished bronze-grey, while the remaining rim of Chancellery gold stopped dissolving and cooled in the lukewarm water.
