The door to the relief store had been built to keep thieves out. It was doing the job so thoroughly that the woman with the key could not get in.
“I turned it twice,” Asa said. “Then the key bent.”
She held it out. The teeth were straight, but the shaft had taken a shallow curve. Iven checked the lock, then pressed his shoulder against the door. It moved a fraction and stopped against something solid on the other side.
“What’s in the store?”
“Meal, cooking oil, and the blankets Vale collected after the gate closure. Also my best ladle.”
“Now I understand the urgency.”
“You will when you taste the soup made with the other one.”
He examined the frame. The upper hinge had pulled away from the jamb. The door had dropped just enough for its lower edge to catch on the sill, but that was not the only problem. Something behind it was pressing outward. He could see a sliver of canvas through the gap near the bottom.
“Has anything shifted inside?”
“A stack of sacks. They were against the wall yesterday.”
The room belonged to the relief kitchen, which occupied a narrow ground-floor space between a shuttered tailor’s shop and a stairwell. Asa had arranged a morning distribution for six households whose cooking supplies had been lost during the gate closure. The people waiting outside did not look angry yet. They looked as if they had learned that anger would not make food arrive sooner.
Mother Vale stood beside the cart with a list folded in her hand. Brin was carrying empty bowls from the kitchen to the waiting families, collecting names as he went.
“We can give them broth,” Vale said. “The meal is what makes it a meal.”
Tavin had sent Iven after hearing about the door from a passenger. Iven had come with his tools and a length of rope, expecting a stuck latch. He looked at the wall beside the frame. Its plaster had cracked along a diagonal line. A pile of water barrels stood on the other side of the narrow passage, and a wet patch spread beneath them.
“Have those barrels always been there?” he asked.
“Since last week,” Asa said. “The kitchen cistern is being cleaned.”
“Did any leak?”
“The second one did. We emptied it.”
He pressed the wall below the crack. The plaster was damp and soft. The timber beneath it had swollen around the hinge mounting. A sagging door, a shifted stack of sacks, and a damp wall had combined to hold the store shut.
“I can lift the door,” he said, “but if the sacks fall when it opens, we need someone ready to catch them.”
Asa looked at his arm. “With that?”
“Some of it. Mostly with a lever.”
She called over two people waiting for meal. One was a baker with flour on his sleeves. The other was a woman who introduced herself as Dera and said she had worked in a warehouse before the gate closure. Neither required an explanation of how heavy a sack could become when it landed on a person’s foot.
Iven fetched a timber offcut from the tailor’s shop. The shopkeeper lent it after Asa promised to return it or replace it. Iven set one end under the door and placed a block beneath it for a fulcrum. He asked Dera to watch the gap while he pressed down on the other end.
The door rose a little. The upper hinge creaked. Canvas appeared in the widening gap, followed by the edge of a sack.
“It’s leaning,” Dera said. “Not falling yet.”
“Can you get a hand through?”
“Not one I want to keep.”
Iven adjusted the lever. With his left hand free, he seated the brace pattern and pressed against the frame where the hinge had pulled loose. The pressure spread across the damaged mounting. He was not strong enough to hold the door up indefinitely, but the brace gave him a few seconds to move the lever into a better position.
“Now,” he said.
Dera slipped a flat board through the gap. The baker pushed beside her, using the board to move the nearest sack back. Iven heard the grain inside it shift. The sack settled with a soft thump.
“Another,” Dera said.
They moved the second sack, then the third. On the fourth, the stack shifted more than they intended. The door lurched outward. Iven released the brace and caught the lever before it kicked up into his face. A sack pressed against the gap, its seam straining.
Asa stepped forward with the lid of an empty crate. “Use this.”
They slid the lid between the door and the sack. Dera pushed while the baker pulled the door wider. The sack fell onto the crate lid instead of the floor. It did not burst. A little cloud of flour escaped from a worn corner, coating Asa’s shoes.
She looked down. “My best pair.”
“Are they?” Iven asked.
“They were before I bought the other pair.”
They opened the door enough to enter. The store was close and cool. Several sacks had shifted away from the wall, and a shelf of blankets leaned at an angle that made Iven unwilling to stand beneath it. He and Dera carried the sacks out while the baker straightened the shelf. Asa retrieved the ladle and held it up as though she had rescued a child.
The waiting families helped move the food to the kitchen. Vale checked each name against her list, then crossed it off only after the person had received a portion. One woman asked whether she could take a second portion for a neighbor who was ill. Vale asked the neighbor’s name and sent Brin to check, not because she thought the woman was lying but because she wanted the neighbor on the list for next time.
Iven stayed to repair the hinge. The screws had pulled out of swollen timber, leaving holes too large to hold them again. He cut two plugs from dry wood, fitted them into the damaged holes, and let the adhesive set while he checked the lower hinge. The lower hinge was sound. The sill had worn unevenly, so he planed a narrow strip from the bottom of the door before lifting it back into place.
Asa returned with a bowl of broth and a piece of bread. “Payment.”
“You haven’t tested the door.”
“I’ve tested the broth. I know which one needs help.”
He set the bowl on a crate and finished the hinge. This time the door swung freely, leaving a finger’s width above the sill. Asa opened and closed it three times. On the fourth she pushed it harder than necessary.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“Testing whether it knows I’m serious.”
“Doors respond well to authority.”
“Then this one should be terrified.”
They ate at a small table near the kitchen window. Vale had gone to check on the next household. Brin returned with the ill neighbor’s name and a request for more water. Asa filled a jug and gave it to him with a packet of meal.
“You don’t have to carry everything yourself,” she told him.
“I know. But I know where this one lives.”
“Take the cart.”
“The cart’s wheel makes a noise.”
“Then everyone will hear you coming and move out of the way.”
Brin accepted this reasoning and left. Iven watched him maneuver the cart around the water barrels without spilling the jug.
“You could use another pair of hands,” he said.
“I could use six. Most of the people I trust are already doing something.” Asa dipped her bread into the broth. “Vale found two rooms for a family from the closed street. The rooms have a roof, but the stairs are bad. Neri’s crew is looking at them.”
“Do you have enough blankets?”
“Today. Next week depends on whether people keep bringing them.”
Iven thought of the coins he had passed to Vale through the relief fund. He had not given his name, and Vale had not asked for one in front of the others. The money helped, but it could not lift a sack, repair a hinge, or make a person warm if the blankets did not arrive.
Asa set down her spoon. “You look like you’re trying to take the kitchen apart.”
“I’m checking the hinges.”
“Mine?”
“They seem sound.”
“Good. I’ve been told I can be difficult when I’m badly mounted.”
He smiled despite himself. She had a way of making a joke without giving up the point underneath it.
A shout came from the street. Brin’s cart had stopped at the mouth of the passage. Two men were standing beside it, one with a hand on the jug. Brin was holding the other side of the handle and refusing to let go.
Iven was out of the chair before Asa reached the door. He crossed the passage and saw that the men wore armbands from the local delivery depot. One had a short baton tucked into his belt.
“What’s the problem?” Iven asked.
“This cart is needed for board deliveries,” the man with the jug said. “There’s an order.”
Brin pointed toward the kitchen. “It’s Vale’s cart.”
“Then Vale can submit a claim.”
“For the cart you’re taking now?” Asa asked from behind Iven.
The man produced a folded notice. It authorized the depot to requisition transport equipment for emergency heat deliveries. It did not name the cart. It also said requisitioned equipment should be recorded and compensated. The space for a receipt was blank.
“Write the receipt,” Iven said.
“We’re in a hurry.”
“So is the person waiting for this water.”
The second man moved toward the cart. Brin pulled it back. One wheel struck the curb, and the jug tipped. Iven caught it before it fell, then placed it on the ground behind him.
“Leave that,” the man said.
“No.”
The baton came out. It was a plain length of wood, not a restorer’s tool, and the man held it with the confidence of someone accustomed to people moving aside. Iven set his feet in the narrow passage. The wall was close on his left; the open street lay behind the men. Asa stood by the kitchen door with a long-handled ladle in one hand. Brin had the cart. No one needed to fight for the sake of winning an argument, but the man with the baton was already stepping forward.
He swung at Iven’s shoulder. Iven raised his left hand and seated the plate brace in a compact space against the wall. The baton struck it and bounced aside. The impact jarred his arm. He used the opening to step inside the man’s reach and push him backward with the piston pattern.
The push caught the man in the chest. He stumbled into his companion, and both went down against the curb. The baton rolled across the street.
The second man scrambled up. Iven did not pursue him. He put himself between the men and the cart and kept his hands visible.
“You can write the receipt,” he said. “Or you can bring someone from the depot who knows what the order means.”
The man on the ground rubbed his chest. He looked more surprised than hurt. “You hit me with a graft.”
“You swung a stick at me.”
“I was doing my job.”
“Then do the part where you write what you’ve taken.”
Asa stepped beside Iven and held out the notice. “The water goes to a sick neighbor. If the depot needs the cart after that, Vale can discuss a loan. You’re not taking it by grabbing a boy.”
The second man retrieved the baton and handed it to his companion without looking at Iven. “Let’s go.”
They went. The man who had been pushed looked back once, but he did not raise the baton again.
Brin picked up the jug. His hands were shaking. Asa steadied it while he set it back on the cart.
“You all right?” she asked.
“He pulled the cart.”
“I saw.”
“He didn’t ask.”
“I saw that too.”
She waited until he met her eyes. “You did well. Next time, call someone before he gets hold of it.”
Brin nodded. He took the cart toward the ill neighbor’s room, walking more carefully now. Asa watched him go, then turned to Iven.
“You could have broken his ribs.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know. That’s why I’m saying you could have, not that you did.”
He looked down the street where the two men had disappeared. The piston push had felt clean and direct. He could have put more into it. The ease of that choice was something he would need to learn to respect.
“I’ll remember,” he said.
“I expect you to.”
Back inside, the broth had gone lukewarm. Iven ate it anyway. Asa found a cloth for the flour on her shoes, then changed her mind and left it there. The door swung freely behind her when she went into the store.
Later, Tavin found Iven at the kitchen table and handed him a small metal spring, cracked at one end.
“Cage Seven’s suspension,” Tavin said. “Jem found it when he inspected the lower guide.”
“Another part?”
“Another part.”
Iven turned it between his fingers. The fracture was old at one edge and bright at the other. The spring had carried a load until it had carried one too many.
“Can we replace it?”
“Jem has a blank. He wants you at the yard tomorrow.”
Asa pointed her ladle at both of them. “Take the spring with you. I don’t want it in my soup.”
Tavin tucked it away. “Your soup could use the strength.”
She gave him a look that made him retreat before she had to use the ladle.