The hour before the fourth bell was the quietest time in the underground city. Just then, the steam boilers throttled down their pressure and the air-powered tubes ceased their rhythmic whistling.
In Sub-Basement Twelve, the only sound was the crackle of pine splinters dying in the small iron fire bowl and the dry, whispering scrape of Master Ren’s bone pestle against a block of hard black Chinese ink.
Ren Vale was on the far side of the cellar, checking the straps of his keeper’s satchel by the light of an animal fat wick, testing the stoppers on his vials of gall acid and aqua fortis. Vane Vale and Lord Ren had already slipped into the shadows of the Speculum to conserve Ren’s life-force. That left only Master Ren showed up in the physical room to prepare the slate ciphers.
Mira sat at the end of the long oak bookbinder’s table.
Her left hand held her boxwood thimble. She pressed a bone-handled needle through the hem of a gray linen handkerchief. She was embroidering a tiny sprig of mountain heather into the corner—a stubborn, domestic defiance against the miles of stone pressing down upon their heads.
Her right arm rested flat across the salted timber.
