Night settled over Sunder-Foot like a wet wool blanket soaked in soot. A freezing drizzle fell steadily from the mountain crags. That turned the unpaved alleys into knee-deep morasses of black granite sludge. The only lights in the valley were the dull yellow squares of animal fat candles in the overseers’ barracks and the fiery red glare of the boiler fireboxes on the quarry rim. There, the night-shift pumps chugged with an endless, mournful clank.
Inside the records storehouse of the Administration House, the air was cold enough to turn human breath into white vapor. Two small animal fat candles in tin sconces cast flickering, dancing shadows across the towering oak shelves, where hundreds of bound ledgers were stacked in rigid, dust-caked rows.
Chief Clerk Mallow sat at a narrow pine table. His threadbare coat buttoned was tight to his chin. His shivering fingers grabbed a cup of cold chicory water. Across from him, Tomas Reed stood with his sleeves rolled back, his leather courier satchel resting on an empty packing crate. Mara Flint sat on a wooden stool near the doorway, her iron-ringed staff resting across her knees, her unblinking gaze pinned to Mallow like a hawk watching a field mouse.
