Sera made Iven take off his boot before she would answer any questions.
He sat on the edge of the clinic bed while she examined his ankle. It had swollen around the outside, and a purple mark crossed the skin where Dain’s force line had held it against the anchor. Sera pressed gently along the bone.
“Does this hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“Less.”
“And here?”
“More. Are you enjoying this?”
“Enormously. Hold still.”
She wrapped the ankle and told him to keep it elevated for the afternoon. Iven objected that he had work. Sera told him he could object from the bed as easily as from the floor.
Neri sat in the chair beside the window, repairing a torn glove. She had come to have a splinter removed from her palm and had stayed because Sera had told her to keep Iven from walking out. The assignment amused her more than it should have.
“You’re both very pleased with yourselves,” Iven said.
“I’m pleased the bone isn’t broken,” Sera replied. “Neri is pleased you can’t reach the door quickly.”
“I’m pleased about both,” Neri said.
Sera finished the bandage and set a cup of water beside him. “You can walk tomorrow if the swelling goes down. No jumping off bridges to test it.”
“What about sliding along one?”
“No.”
“An unreasonable restriction.”
“It’s a short list. I can make it longer.”
She left to check on Derrit. Through the open door Iven heard the injured worker laughing at something his wife had said. The sound was a relief. It did not mean his leg was healed, but it meant the clinic was more than a place where people waited for bad news.
Neri tied off the glove’s seam with her teeth. “Dain watched your feet.”
“He watched everything.”
“He watched your right foot when you shifted toward the wall. You always put weight there before using the spring.”
“Not always.”
“You did yesterday.”
Iven considered the corridor. The anchor ring had been at ankle height. Dain had not needed to guess which way Iven would go; he had seen the preparation, chosen a point that would redirect the movement, and waited for him to commit.
“He gave me room above the shield,” Iven said.
“Enough room to tempt you.”
“I thought he was protecting the lower side.”
“Maybe he was. Then he noticed which way you wanted to move.”
“Are you sure you’re not a restorer?”
“I repair bridges. People fall into patterns as reliably as badly fitted joints.”
He rested his ankle on a folded blanket. “I could use the glide instead.”
“You did use it. That’s why you got into the room.”
“And he saw that too.”
“Yes. Next time he’ll have a different answer. So will you.”
She did not say he should have won. She did not say he had failed everyone by losing. Iven found he had been preparing to defend himself against both accusations, although neither had come.
“I don’t like being pinned,” he said.
“Most people don’t.”
“I thought I’d found a gap.”
“You found one. He changed it.”
“That’s worse.”
“It’s also useful. You know what he can do.”
He let the thought settle. Dain had been stronger, better positioned, and prepared to use the wall. Iven had still moved past him once, stopped a guard from taking Elian, and helped bring the surveyor back from the rail. Those facts could exist alongside the loss without canceling it.
Neri put on the repaired glove and flexed her fingers. “I’m taking my crew to the yard. Jem is convinced the rail needs a second diagonal support.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you sounding surprised?”
“Because he thinks I haven’t noticed.”
She stood. Iven reached for the water cup and found that she had placed it just beyond his comfortable reach. He looked at her.
“Was that deliberate?”
“Of course.” She moved it closer. “You may recover your independence tomorrow.”
After she left, Iven spent an hour doing nothing useful. He watched a fly investigate the window frame. He listened to the clinic door open and close. He wondered whether Elian had spoken to his father and whether Tavin had managed to keep the notebook sealed without somebody deciding that a transport captain was not a suitable custodian.
At last he took a scrap of paper from his coat and drew the corridor. He marked the anchor ring, Dain’s position, the shield, and the point where he had pushed upward. Then he drew a second route that stayed low and moved toward the commander’s shielded side.
The second route had a problem. It ended against the wall.
He drew a third, using the railing outside. That had a different problem: it put both men above a public walkway.
He drew a fourth, then crossed it out when he realized it required him to use four patterns at once. He had three channels, not four. In a real fight he could reseat one, but only if he had a free hand and a few seconds the other person was willing to give him.
“What are you doing?” Brin asked from the doorway.
“Improving my artistic reputation.”
Brin came closer. “That looks like a corridor.”
“Thank you. I worked hard on it.”
Brin carried a small paper parcel. He set it on the bed. “Vale sent these. She said you should eat before you start accusing the bandage of restricting your work.”
Inside were two pieces of bread and a thick slice of cheese. Iven ate one piece while Brin examined the drawing.
“Why don’t you go around him?”
“There’s a wall.”
“Through the room, then.”
“The guard was in the room.”
“You got past him.”
“I did. Then Dain followed.”
Brin traced a line from the window to the stairs. “Could you have taken Elian through the physician’s room before Dain reached you?”
“Maybe. If I’d seen the other guard sooner.”
“So next time you look first.”
“An elegant strategy.”
“It’s a better drawing than the other ones.”
Iven handed him the pencil. Brin added a small square at the end of the corridor. “What’s that?” Iven asked.
“A door.”
“There isn’t a door there.”
“There should be.”
“Tell the survey office.”
“I might.”
Brin took the second piece of bread when Iven offered it. He had brought news from Vale: Pellin had received her withheld day’s wages after Rella Venn accompanied her to the loading house. The storekeeper had not apologized, but he had signed a corrected receipt. Pellin had found temporary work copying inventory for the passenger association.
“Will she go back to the loading house?” Iven asked.
“She doesn’t know. She said she likes the work but not the people who decide whether she’s allowed to do it.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Vale said you should stop looking pleased about someone else having trouble.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were a little.”
Sera returned with a tray of clean bandages. She checked Iven’s ankle again, then asked Brin to fetch water. He went, taking the pencil with him.
“You look less angry,” she said.
“Was I angry?”
“Yes.”
“I was being reflective.”
“You were pressing the pencil hard enough to mark the sheet beneath it.”
He turned the page over. The drawing had indeed cut through. “I dislike wasting paper.”
“Then use both sides.”
She sat on the edge of the chair Neri had vacated. “Dain is experienced. He didn’t defeat you because your graft failed.”
“I know.”
“He recognized a preparation and used the corridor. That can be answered.”
“I know that too.”
“Good.”
He looked at her. “Is this the part where you tell me to be patient?”
“No. I find that advice annoying when people give it to me.”
“What do you tell yourself?”
“That if I work faster than the material permits, I’ll have to do the work twice.”
“That’s patience with a better name.”
“It is. Don’t tell anyone.”
A knock sounded at the clinic door. Elian entered with Jora behind him. The surveyor’s coat had been changed, but the scrape on his wrist remained visible beneath a clean bandage. Jora carried a sealed envelope.
“My father says the map was revised because the old route was believed unstable,” Elian said without preamble. “He says the room’s omission was a survey decision made before his administration.”
“Is that true?” Iven asked.
“I don’t know. He gave me permission to inspect the older records.”
“That’s useful.”
“He also asked for the names of everyone who entered the room.”
Sera’s expression sharpened. “What did you tell him?”
“That he could ask them directly.”
Jora placed the envelope on the table. “The relevant pages were copied and delivered. The rest of the notebook remains with Tavin until Elian collects it. The secretary signed the receipt.”
Neri had been right to insist on names. Iven opened the envelope and checked the signatures. The room notes were listed separately from the address pages. There was no promise that the survey office would stop seeking the rest, but the immediate order had not taken them.
“Dain?” he asked.
“He’s assigned guards to the passage. The transport board will supervise the support work.”
“Will Neri’s crew be allowed in?”
“If the material is approved.”
Elian sat on the edge of the second chair. “My father says he wants the room preserved.”
“Do you believe him?” Sera asked.
“I believe he doesn’t want a collapse. I don’t know what he wants done with what we found.”
Jora looked at the drawing on Iven’s bed. “That corridor?”
“Yes.”
“You missed a door.”
Brin reappeared with the water jug. “That’s what I said.”
Iven stared at the two of them. “There is no door.”
“There was a service hatch behind the furnace,” Jora said. “Too narrow for most people, but it leads to the lower landing.”
Neri had warned him to look for routes. Brin had drawn a door because he thought there should be one. Iven looked at his drawing and found himself laughing, first quietly and then hard enough that Sera told him to stop moving his ankle.
“What?” Elian asked.
“I’ve spent an hour planning how to get around Dain. Apparently I could have crawled behind the furnace.”
“You’d have had to know it was there,” Jora said.
“I know it now.”
Brin held out his hand. “That’ll be one sweet for the door.”
“You didn’t know it was there.”
“I improved the drawing.”
Iven gave him the last piece of cheese instead. Brin accepted it after brief negotiation.
By evening the swelling had begun to ease. Sera allowed Iven to walk to the kitchen if he used a stick and came back before dark. He objected to the stick until Vale handed him one and told him he could choose between looking injured and falling into her soup.
At the kitchen table, Neri’s crew was celebrating the repaired rail with a pot of stew and a game played with mismatched cards. Jem accused Dessa of cheating. Dessa said she had only improved the odds by knowing the rules. Neri made room for Iven on the bench.
“How’s the ankle?” she asked.
“Receiving more attention than it deserves.”
She pushed a bowl toward him. “Eat.”
He did. The stew was not as good as the one at her workshop, and he told her so. She took his spoon, tasted it, and agreed. Vale threatened to remove both bowls if the criticism continued.
Iven played two hands badly, won the third by accident, and lost the fourth because Brin had learned the rules while everyone assumed he was talking. When he left, Neri walked him as far as the clinic door.
“You’re smiling,” she said.
“I won a game.”
“You lost three.”
“I’m trying a new method of counting.”
She paused under the lamp. “You don’t have to win every exchange to be useful, Iven.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked back toward the kitchen, where Tavin had arrived and was already arguing with Jem about the rules. “I think I’m learning.”
Neri touched his shoulder once, a quick pressure through the coat. “Good. Tomorrow there’s a paid job, and I don’t intend to carry you to it.”