The doctor called the Tern herself.
Mara never learned how she had heard. Perhaps Nemi had told her; perhaps one of the children who had counted the third floor had told her; perhaps someone at the hospital had seen the grate over the cistern go cold and warm and cold and had gone looking for the person on the dock with the ship. However it happened, an hour after Mara wrote the cistern on the load sheet, the clip on her collar chimed, and Sera’s voice said, “Venn. Someone from the hospital. She wants to talk to whoever’s counting.”
“Put her on.”
A woman’s voice came down the shaft. Older than Nemi’s, deep, very tired, with the clipped precision of someone used to giving orders in a hurry.
“You’re the smith,” she said. “In the gate.”
“Yes.”
“The teacher says you’re building a heart. For the lamp. And that you’re counting every load on the Reach to build it.” A pause. “And that you found the cistern.”
“Yes. The metal found it. I wrote it down.”
