The second brass metal tube yielded to Davren’s work knife with the same clean, flaking curl of amber beeswax.
Kezra twisted off the threaded end cap and lowered the metal tube to the larch table. Then, three extra bronze profile plates slid onto the dark wood. Fastened to the underside of the metal tube’s heavy bronze lid by four tiny countersunk screws was an ancillary index disc. A six-inch circular plate of polished brass engraved with fine outward fine-scale scales and a reduced-scale height diagram of the Stonewake northern outer edge.
Kezra’s hands were shaking as she unbuttoned the oiled-wool lining of her coat. From the inner pocket where she kept her most precious working documents, she drew out two worn, folded leaves of rag paper that had traveled with her across sixty-four days, three mountain ranges, the bitter salt flats of Saltglass, and the dark resin canopy of Hushwood.
The first was Davren’s final letter from Kilnstep. Written eighteen months ago in his hurried, energetic hand, speaking of three stair treads emerging from a bare hillside, Alderfast. A wind-scoured bench called Empty Choir.
The second was the waxed charcoal rubbing she had taken on Day Twenty-Four from the underside of the oak floor beam inside the abandoned Blackglass toll booth. The secret mark Davren had hidden where only an eye searching for dry foundation joints would ever think to look.
