The brake handle came away in Iven’s hand.
He stared at it for the length of one breath, then threw it onto the floor of the trolley. “That was decorative.”
Dessa had both feet planted against the rear rail. She reached for the exposed brake linkage, but the carriage lurched before she could grip it. The red flag snapped past them. Beyond it the track was darker, a pair of narrow rails curving around the loading house and out over open space.
Pellin crouched in the bottom of the trolley with her arms around her head. Neri stood above her, one hand gripping the rail and the other holding the folded copy of the ledger inside her sleeve. The wind had caught the edge of her coat and pulled it straight behind her.
“Tell me about the end,” Neri said.
Pellin looked up. “There’s a transfer platform. Or there was.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“Three hundred paces. Maybe four.”
The track ahead sloped toward the platform, which was hidden by the loading house. Iven could hear the wheels chattering over the joins. Every second brought the next join faster.
He crouched beside the brake linkage. The handle had sheared at its base, leaving a short metal stub. A threaded rod connected it to a pair of blocks above the wheels. If he could turn the rod, the blocks might grip the rims.
He put his adjustable spanner on the stub. It slipped.
“Hold this,” he told Dessa.
She caught his coat while he shifted his weight over the side. Air moved beneath him. The lower city was a lattice of roofs and platforms, its lamps scattered along the spaces between them. He did not look for the ground. There was too much of Mercy between him and it for the distinction to matter.
He fitted the spanner again and pulled. The stub turned a little. One brake block dropped against the near wheel with a squeal. The trolley shuddered, slowed, then jerked sideways as the other block failed to engage.
Neri caught Pellin before she slid into the rail. “Even brakes would be nice.”
“I’m working on it.”
A gap appeared in the linkage on the far side. Someone had removed a connecting pin. Iven could not reach it from where he was. He could reach the ratchet pattern in his graft, though, a small familiar arrangement of motion and refusal. He set the spanner against the stub, engaged the pattern, and pulled the handle one notch. The force held the rod where he left it.
The wheel continued to squeal. Smoke rose in thin, angry threads.
“That’s too much on one side,” Dessa said.
“I’ve noticed.”
He released the ratchet a notch. The trolley rolled more freely, but the shudder eased. They came around the corner and saw the transfer platform.
It had not entirely disappeared. A square of planking remained beside the track, supported by brackets fixed to the wall. Half the outer rail was missing. The track itself ended at a stop made of two crossed timbers. Beyond it was an empty span where another section of rail had once been.
“Pellin,” Iven said, “can you jump?”
“Onto that?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s honest. Neri, can you?”
Neri looked at the platform. “If we slow a little more.”
Iven tightened the brake another notch. The wheel screamed. The platform grew larger, and he could see that one plank had pulled loose from its fastening. It lifted in the wind like a loose tooth.
Dessa took Pellin’s arm. “When I say, put your feet under you. Don’t look down.”
“I’ve already looked down.”
“Then stop.”
They passed the first bracket. Dessa pushed Pellin toward Neri, who caught her around the waist and swung her onto the platform. The two women stumbled across it together. Neri struck the wall with one shoulder but kept Pellin upright.
Iven braced his boot against the floor. “Go,” he told Dessa.
“You first.”
“I’m holding the brake.”
“And I’m heavier.”
“That isn’t a useful argument.”
“It is if the platform breaks.”
She grabbed the rail, waited until the trolley drew alongside a sound-looking section, and jumped. Her boots hit the planks. The platform sagged and held. Neri pulled her toward the wall.
Iven released the ratchet. The wheel began turning faster. He stood on the rear edge of the trolley, judged the distance, and sprang. His boot landed on the loose plank. It flipped beneath him.
The platform vanished from under one leg. His hands struck the edge, and a burst of pain ran up his right wrist. His left forearm hit the bracket. The graft tightened, a hot line beneath the skin.
Neri seized his coat. Dessa caught his other arm. Together they hauled him onto the platform as the trolley struck the crossed timbers.
The sound was not a crash so much as a series of things deciding separately to fail. One timber split. The trolley climbed the other, tipped, and hung for an instant with its front wheels over the end of the rail. Then the rear wheels lifted. The whole carriage fell out of sight.
Pellin put both hands over her mouth. A long moment passed before a distant impact rang through the shaft.
Iven lay on the planks, breathing hard. Neri’s face hovered above him.
“Did you have to catch the loose one?” she asked.
“I like to test the workmanship.”
“You’ve tested it. It’s bad.”
Dessa was already checking the brackets. “We can’t stay here. The outer bolt’s pulling.”
A narrow maintenance door opened into the loading house wall. Pellin tried it and found it barred from the other side. Iven sat up, flexed his wrist, and took the awl from his coat. The joint hurt, but his fingers still closed around the tool.
“Let me.”
The bar inside the door rested in two hooks. He could see its end through a gap beside the frame. He worked the awl under it, lifted, and felt the bar scrape against the wood. It rose from one hook and dropped into place again.
Behind them, footsteps clattered along the upper track. A man appeared around the corner, carrying a lamp and moving more carefully than his expression suggested he wanted to.
“He can wait,” Dessa said. She picked up a loose length of railing and held it across the platform.
The man stopped at the beginning of the damaged boards. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“That’s what we’re trying to improve.”
He looked over the edge, saw the missing trolley, and reconsidered his footing. Iven took advantage of the pause. He lifted the bar again, pushed it sideways, and heard it drop on the inside. The door opened onto a flight of narrow stairs.
Pellin went in first. Neri followed, then Iven. Dessa backed through last and pulled the door shut. A blow landed against the other side before she could lower the bar. Iven caught it with both hands, dropped it into the hooks, and stepped back as the wood shook.
The stairs descended through a service tower. At the bottom, a corridor led toward the lower freight lane. The tower smelled of old grease and wet stone. Their footsteps echoed ahead of them, making it hard to tell whether anyone else was there.
Pellin stopped beside a small window. “My things are in the office.”
“You can get them later,” Neri said.
“My wages are in my coat.”
“How much?”
“Six days.”
Iven looked at Neri. She had the ledger copy, and the men upstairs knew it. If they stopped here, the men could circle around. If Pellin went home without her wages, she would have a different problem by morning.
“We can go back when the yard opens,” he said. “With witnesses.”
Pellin shook her head. “He’ll say I left early. He’ll keep it.”
Dessa leaned against the wall, breathing a little harder than usual. “Then we find someone who saw him tie you up.”
“There was only him.”
“There were three men downstairs,” Iven said. “They saw us bring you out.”
“They work for him.”
“Do they all want to explain why they helped lock a clerk in her own office?”
Pellin gave him a doubtful look. It was a fair one. Iven could not promise that the men would tell the truth, or that Krail would pay wages because they did. He could offer to stand beside her when she asked.
“We’ll come with you,” he said. “All three of us. In daylight.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You just helped us leave a building. It seems worth returning the favor.”
Neri touched Pellin’s shoulder. “There’s a kitchen near the gate. Mother Vale will find you a place tonight.”
Pellin hesitated, then nodded.
They reached a junction where the corridor met the freight lane. A cart stood across the opening, its handles raised. Behind it were the younger worker from the warehouse and another man with a short club. The worker’s eyes went straight to Pellin.
“You weren’t supposed to go,” he said.
“She wasn’t supposed to be tied up,” Neri replied.
The man with the club lifted it. “Hand over the paper.”
Iven stepped forward. His wrist complained. He kept his right hand loose and his left arm close to his side.
“There’s no paper worth breaking bones over,” he said.
“Then give it to me.”
“I didn’t say it belonged to you.”
The man swung. Iven moved inside the arc, caught the club against his forearm, and felt the impact through the plate brace he had seated while descending the stairs. The brace did not stop all of it; his arm went numb to the elbow. It did stop the wood from striking bone at full force.
He drove his shoulder into the man and sent a short piston strike through the contact. The man staggered backward into the cart. One handle dropped, pinning his coat against the wall. Before he could pull free, Dessa kicked the other handle down across his arm.
The younger worker backed away. “I didn’t touch her.”
“Then help us move the cart,” Neri said.
He looked at the pinned man, then at Pellin. He took one handle. Iven took the other, and together they pushed the cart far enough to open a path. The pinned man swore and tried to rise; Dessa kept a foot on the wheel until the others had passed.
They emerged onto a crowded public stair. Workers were returning from the evening shift, carrying tins and bundles and the day’s tiredness. Several turned to watch the group come out of the service tower. Pellin’s torn sleeve and Iven’s bruised face were explanation enough for some of them; others began offering explanations of their own.
“Keep walking,” Neri said.
They did. No one followed into the crowd.
At Mother Vale’s kitchen, the last pots were being scrubbed. Vale listened to Pellin without interrupting, found her a blanket, and sent Brin to fetch a woman who knew the lodging houses. She also sent Iven to the pump with two buckets, explaining that an injured wrist was no reason to let everybody else carry water.
The cold handle hurt. He carried the buckets anyway.
When he returned, Neri was sitting with Pellin at a table. The ledger copy lay between them, weighted by a spoon. Pellin had added two names in careful letters.
“Those are the men who signed the transfer,” she said. “The destination was blank when the crate came in. Someone filled it afterward.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t on that shift.”
“But you can say the original entry was incomplete.”
“Yes.”
Dessa came through the door behind him. “The broad man went to Krail’s office. One of the others went to the Sable wagon yard.”
“Did they see where we went?” Neri asked.
“I think so. They couldn’t miss the crowd.”
Vale set a bowl of stew in front of Pellin and another in front of Iven. “They can come here in the morning,” she said. “I’ve got a great many people who can tell them where the door is.”
Iven looked at the copied lines. They had the route of a shipment, an altered entry, and a clerk willing to say what she knew. They did not yet have proof that Krail had ordered the alteration or known what the pins contained.
Neri followed his gaze. “Not enough?”
“Enough to ask a better question.”
She picked up the spoon and gave it to Pellin. “Then we ask it before they decide what the answer should be.”