The heavy iron drop-bolt of the street door echoed once inside its warded oak mortise, shutting out the hiss of the autumn rainstorm that still beat against the broad pine eaves of the River Lantern Inn.
Wiping the cold rainwater and aqueduct soot from his brow with the back of his forearm, Jon Hale turned back across the taproom floorboards. A wide trail of river clay, grey stone slurry, and wet straw marked the path from the threshold to the back room where he, Iven, and the two burly Host defectors had carried Sir Cael Ardent upon the unhinged oak sluice door only moments before, while the three slow strokes of the municipal bell were still dying across the flooded market square. The third day of the thirteenth cycle had closed without the white flash of a reset, yet beneath the dry warmth of the cast-iron stove, the house remained braced like a ship riding over a submerged reef.
“Do not shut the inner partition doors, Sister,” Jon called out, his voice raw from the subterranean steam as he walked past the long trestle tables where weavers, coopers, and the two unarmed Host defectors who had borne the rear hinges of Cael’s stretcher stood watching in solemn silence. “Hook both leaves wide back against the wainscot. Whatever we do at that table tonight, we do with the house open before the watch and the town.”
