The side door latched perfectly.
Iven tested it twice, then leaned his forehead against the wood. “Your informant has a generous definition of ‘not always.’”
Dessa watched the freight lane behind them. “It didn’t latch yesterday.”
“Then someone repaired it.”
“You sound offended.”
“I am. They could have waited until tomorrow.”
The loading house stood beneath a covered track, its long roof supported on thick iron legs. The evening count had finished half an hour earlier. Most of the workers had gone home, though lamps still moved behind the upper windows where clerks checked the day’s manifests. A wagon creaked away toward the middle saddle. Its driver sang to the axle until someone on a balcony asked him to stop.
Neri crouched beside Iven. “Can you open it?”
“Probably.”
“Without breaking it?”
“That depends how much you care about this particular door.”
“I care enough that we might have to use it again on the way out.”
He took an awl from his coat and worked it between the latch and the frame. The latch was new: a bright piece of steel screwed to an old plate. Whoever had fitted it had left one screw slightly proud. Iven pressed the awl beneath the head, eased it around, and felt the plate shift.
The door opened a finger’s width.
Neri peered through. “You’re enjoying yourself.”
“Someone has finally paid attention to a door. It would be rude not to appreciate it.”
“You haven’t been paid.”
“Then this is strictly recreational.”
Dessa slipped inside first. Iven followed with a shuttered lamp and Neri came last, easing the latch back into place behind them. The room smelled of damp canvas, packing straw, and the sharp oil used to keep metal from rusting. Crates stood in rows marked by chalk numbers. Above them, a catwalk ran the length of the wall to a small office suspended over the loading floor.
The lamp showed a path between the crates, wide enough for a handcart. Nothing moved on the floor. Voices drifted from beyond a pair of double doors on the far side: two men discussing a missing axle. One thought it had been stolen. The other thought it was beneath the first man’s coat.
“Office,” Neri whispered, pointing up.
They moved along the chalked path. Iven kept the lamp covered with his palm except when they reached a turn. The dark places between the crates seemed deeper than they should have been. He checked each one anyway, not because he expected a monster in a warehouse, but because people hiding from other people tended to choose the same useful spaces.
At the stair, a chain barred the first step. A small sign read OFFICE CLOSED. Someone had drawn a face beneath it with a wide, indifferent mouth.
Dessa lifted the chain over its hook. “They’ve spent their security money on the door.”
The stairs complained under their weight. Neri stopped halfway and listened. The voices beyond the double doors continued. Iven could make out only the rhythm of the argument, rising and falling without either man gaining ground.
At the top, he found the office door unlocked. That bothered him more than the new latch downstairs.
“Maybe the storekeeper trusts the chain,” Neri said.
“Maybe he trusts us to pick the wrong room.”
Inside were two desks, a cabinet, a narrow bed and a washstand. The room was orderly except for the bed, where a blanket lay in a heap. A ledger rested open on one desk beneath a paperweight shaped like a pear. Iven left it alone and examined the cabinet first. Its drawers were labeled by month and freight route.
Neri opened the drawer for the current month. “This is too easy.”
“Please don’t say that until we’re gone.”
She found the loading berth from Dessa’s sister’s notes. The entries named incoming wagons, unloading teams, and destinations. On the date in question, a shipment from Sable Foundry had gone to Krail Haulage: collars, pins, and guide wheels. The quantity matched Tavin’s order.
“There’s the route,” she said.
“Does it say what specification?”
She ran her finger down the page. “Not here. Just the lot number.”
Iven took a sheet of paper from his pocket and began copying the entries. He wrote the date, the lot, the names of both carriers, and the person who had signed for the transfer. The handwriting in the ledger changed halfway through the line. He paused.
“What?” Neri asked.
“Someone filled in the destination later.”
“You can tell?”
“Look at the ink. Different shade. Different hand.”
She looked, then held the page nearer the lamp. “That could be normal. Maybe the wagon wasn’t assigned until it arrived.”
“It could.”
Dessa stood by the door with her ear angled toward the stair. “Can we copy the page and argue afterward?”
Iven copied faster. He kept the letters plain enough to read in a hurry. He had just finished the signature when a sound came from the lower floor: the scrape of a bolt sliding into place.
Dessa turned. “That’s our door.”
The lamp in the office went dark as someone pulled the shutter closed from outside.
Iven reached for the window. A voice called up from the loading floor.
“You might as well leave the books where you found them.”
It was a man’s voice, close enough to the stair that he did not need to shout. There was another sound behind it, the heavy movement of a crate being dragged into place.
Neri took the copied page from Iven and folded it into her sleeve. “We haven’t taken a book.”
“Then you’ve saved me the trouble of asking for it back.”
Dessa eased the office door open. Light spilled across the catwalk from a lamp below. A broad man in a dark vest stood at the foot of the stair. He had an iron bar in one hand, held low against his thigh. Beside him, a younger worker was pushing a crate across the path to the side door.
“Evening,” the broad man said. “Factor Krail was concerned someone might misunderstand an invitation to inspect his goods.”
“We didn’t receive an invitation,” Neri said.
“That’s the misunderstanding.”
Iven stepped onto the catwalk. He could see a second figure by the double doors and a third near the loading shutters. None wore a guard’s uniform. The broad man had placed them where they could block the obvious exits without standing close enough to one another to be caught by the same rush.
“Do you work here?” Iven asked him.
“I do tonight.”
“Then you know there’s a clerk’s bed in the office.”
The man glanced up. “What’s that to you?”
“I was wondering where the clerk is.”
“Home.”
A cough came from behind the cabinet in the office.
Neri turned. The cabinet moved a fraction as someone pressed against it from the other side. Iven slipped past her, put his shoulder to the wood, and shoved. A young woman sat on the floor between the cabinet and the wall, her hands tied in front of her. The clerk’s coat was folded over her knees.
She squinted at the lamp. “Is he still down there?”
“Yes,” Neri said.
“He told me to stay quiet.”
“That was unkind of him.” Neri cut the cord with her knife. “Can you stand?”
The woman stood with help. She was pale, and there was a red mark on one wrist, but she did not appear badly hurt. Iven handed her water from his flask. She drank, then looked toward the door.
“My name’s Pellin. I do the evening entries.”
“I’m Neri. We came for a record.”
“I noticed.”
“Did he put you back there?”
“He said there was a problem with a shipment. Then he said if anyone came in I should stay out of sight.” Pellin rubbed her wrist. “I tried to leave. He didn’t like that.”
The broad man called again. “Are you all comfortable? We can wait until morning if you prefer.”
Pellin’s eyes widened. “He’s moved the shutters. There’s a catch on the outside.”
“Is there another way out?” Iven asked.
She pointed to the window behind the desk. “The west loading balcony. It goes to the track.”
Neri crossed to it and lifted the sash. A narrow platform ran outside beneath the roof. Beyond it, the freight track curved over an open shaft, with a drop to another level of the city. A small cargo trolley stood on the rail, held by a chain.
“That’s a way,” she said.
“Is it a good one?” Dessa asked.
“No.”
Iven checked the window frame. The balcony was bolted to the wall at three points. One bolt had a fresh nut; another was missing entirely. The platform would hold a person, perhaps two if they stayed near the wall. It would not hold four people rushing across at once.
He told the others. Pellin took the news with surprising calm.
“I’ll go first,” she said.
The broad man called up once more. “If you’re thinking about the balcony, I wouldn’t. It hasn’t been inspected.”
Neri called back, “You should tell the storekeeper.”
“I’ll make a note.”
Iven set his lamp on the desk and took out the gauge. He measured the gap around the remaining bolt, then selected a short wedge from his tool roll. The wedge was too thin. He folded a strip of metal around it and drove it carefully between the balcony bracket and the wall.
“Will that hold?” Pellin asked.
“It will make the bracket bear against something besides its own good intentions.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No. It will help. We cross one at a time.”
Dessa went through the window and moved along the wall until she reached the trolley. The platform dipped beneath her boots but stayed attached. She tested the trolley’s chain and found it locked to a post with a pin.
“Can you lift it?” Iven whispered.
“I can lift the chain. The pin’s stuck.”
A heavy foot sounded on the stairs. The broad man had decided waiting was no longer useful.
Iven sent Pellin through the window. Neri followed to the frame, holding it steady while the clerk edged along the balcony. Iven could have used the winch pattern to pull the trolley free, but there was nothing safe to anchor it to from inside the office. He would only drag the post, the balcony, or himself toward the problem.
Dessa braced the chain against her shoulder and hammered the pin with a loose stone from the platform. It moved a little. Not enough.
The office door opened.
Iven turned. The broad man stood in the doorway, bar in hand. He looked at the open window, then at the ledger on the desk.
“You were told to leave the books.”
“They’re still here.”
“You copied them.”
“Did I?”
The man smiled without enthusiasm. “I’d rather not hit you over a piece of paper.”
“That’s a good principle. Keep it.”
The bar came up. Iven stepped aside, letting it strike the edge of the desk. Wood cracked. Before the man could lift it again, Iven caught his wrist and shoved the desk drawer into his knees. The man stumbled, but did not fall. He was heavier and had more room behind him.
Neri threw a coil of rope across the floor. “Iven.”
He snatched it and backed toward the window. The man advanced. Iven set one foot against the desk and sent a short piston impulse through the wood. The desk jumped hard enough to catch the man’s shins. He cursed and swung the bar down, smashing the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the office. Outside, a second lamp moved along the freight lane. Someone had seen the open window.
“Now,” Dessa called.
Iven pushed Neri through first. She caught the frame, swung onto the balcony, and made room for him. The broad man grabbed the back of Iven’s coat as he climbed out. Fabric pulled tight around his throat.
Iven caught the sill with his right hand. With the other, he gripped the man’s wrist through the cloth and drove his heel backward. The blow landed somewhere solid. The grip loosened. Iven dropped onto the balcony beside Neri, and the window slammed down behind him.
The wedge in the bracket squealed.
“Move,” Neri said.
Dessa had freed the trolley pin. Pellin was already aboard, crouched low with both hands around the rail. Neri followed her. Iven pushed off the wall and jumped onto the rear platform as Dessa released the brake.
The trolley rolled down the slight grade. For a few heartbeats it moved so slowly that Iven expected the men on the loading floor to catch them on foot. Then the track curved over the shaft, and gravity took an interest.
The wind rose in his face. Behind them a lamp swung onto the balcony. The broad man shouted for someone to stop the trolley.
Ahead, the track disappeared around the side of the loading house. A red signal flag hung across it, limp in the evening air.
Pellin looked at the flag and made a sound Iven did not like.
“What’s past that?” he asked.
“The end of the inspected rail.”
The trolley gathered speed.