On the afternoon Mara closed the Common Forge’s door for the first time, she and Pell walked out past the water tower.
She closed it herself. The green door and the iron gate both, at the third hour, with a slate hung on the green door’s latch in her chalk: CLOSED THIS AFTERNOON. OPEN AT THE NINTH HOUR TOMORROW. Irit had read it and nodded and gone home to sleep before her shift. Tavin had read it and said nothing and gone to the melt pit. Nobody had asked why.
Pell had not asked either. He had put on his coat and come.
He had brought a list. She could see its edge in his pocket.
They walked up the lane past the conveyor bridge, and up the slope above it, to the water tower.
It was not far. Mara had walked it a hundred times in her three years at the yard, on errands, without thinking about what was at the top. Pell walked a little ahead of her, the way he always had, as if to make sure the path was still there.
Neither of them talked on the way up. The lane was busy: carts, a crew from the conveyor sheds going home, two children with a hoop. Somebody called Mara’s name from a doorway and she lifted a hand without seeing who. The old iron tower on its four legs, with the Low Brace’s tank on top, rusted to the color of dried blood. In its…
