Marisol Vega set the civic register in the center of the Candlewake front desk, unwrapping its oilcloth jacket as if it were a wounded child. The sheepskin binding was cold to the touch, smelling faintly of the coal soot and scorched valve packing that had driven fifty-two residents out of their east-wing routine.
“Put it in Room Two,” Jonah Price said, his voice hoarse from hours of loading trucks in the slush. He leaned against the counter, his coat plastered with road salt and wet cinders. “Omar can lend Marisol the little writing table. Marisol can sit at the drop-leaf table. We run the civic admissions from here, under the motel’s roof.”
It was the obvious solution. It was the human, exhausted suggestion of a man whose boots had been frozen through since dawn, who wanted an end to carrying stretchers through the mud.
“No,” Tessa said.
She stood by the coat hooks, methodically cleaning soot from her ears with a dampened rag. Her hair was still stiff with dried ash, and without her heavy canvas satchel at her hip, she kept reaching for a ratchet that was currently sitting at the bottom of a flooded coal pit.
“Why not?” Jonah demanded, turning on her. “Candlewake has six units isolated for this work in the cellar. The roof is sound. The perimeter hasn’t failed once since the convoy came back. Why drive people out to another freezing ditch when we have walls right here?”
