Mira emerged from the iron metal tube at the change of the third shift.
She crawled through the oval manhole with her left arm first. She used her elbow to pull her weight across the rusted rim. Her charcoal wool shawl was pinned neatly at her throat, and in her left hand she carried her boxwood embroidery hoop, the linen square half-finished with linked sharp-angled stars. Her face was pale, smudged with charcoal dust along her left cheekbone. But her eyes were sharp as newly ground shears.
“If five men are going to stand around my bedchamber whispering about copper washers,” Mira said, sitting on the iron ledge of the metal tube and swinging her woolen skirts over the side, “the least one of you could do is put the kettle on the fire bowl.”
The six Rens in the vault responded in immediate, clashing chorus.
Vane Vale reached into his midnight-blue velvet pocket and withdrew a small, paper-wrapped twist of dried chicory. “I managed to preserve two ounces of imported chicory root from the last raid. Given the current inflation index in this fiery ditch, it’s worth about six days of oat rations. We should brew it at fifty percent dilution.”
