Mara heard the rescue through Sen’s handset in the corridor.
She was still outside the engineering hall, in the concrete passage at the top of the cold stair, with Caldris beside the open door and the Board clerk inside at the third console. Sen had sent a second handset up the ladder with Breda: a black one, on a long cord, plugged into a jack in the corridor’s wall. The service line. Mara held it to her ear.
Through it, Sen’s voice from the lowest chamber. And under Sen’s, faintly, another line patched in: the public concourse, where a landing hatch halfway up the shaft let the ladder out onto the terraces’ main hall. A guild cleaner at the concourse handset, reading names as they came off the ladder.
“Hollis,” the cleaner said. “Off the ladder. On the concourse floor.”
“Hollis,” Sen repeated. From the chamber. “Fifth floor, archive annexe. Off.” Mara heard her write it.
“Varn,” the cleaner said.
“Varn,” Sen said. “Fifth floor. Off.”
“Tesk,” the cleaner said. “With a bad hand. Off.”
