The domestic crisis of the Council of Three began not with steel or sorcery, but with an inventory of dry beans.
In the corner of the crypt, beside an overturned marble altar, Mira Vale sat on a rolled wool blanket with her notebook open across her knees. Her right quartz arm rested motionless against her thigh. It caught the dull yellow lantern light. Meanwhile, her left hand moved with steady, stubborn care, sketching the profile of the Warden’s iron key in black ink.
Beside her, Vane Vale stood over three open wooden crates, his velvet sleeves pinned up to his shoulders with copper wire.
“Thirty-two tins of salt lard,” Vane recited, the beads on his gold-trimmed counting frame clicking in rapid staccato. “Eleven bags of cracked winter barley, infested with black weevils at a ratio of four per cubic inch. One firkin of salt cod so ancient it has achieved sovereign citizenship. Total heat value: four hundred and twelve thousand units. Divided among two hundred and fourteen refugees, we possess exactly five days and six hours of working nutrition before cannibalism becomes a defensible legal argument.”
“We’ll not resort to cannibalism, Vane,” Mira said without looking up from her sketchbook. “Master Corin’s apprentices found three sacks of dried chick-peas in the lower vestry. If we boil them in the fire bowl with salt and willow bark, they don’t taste like gravel at all.”
