By midday, the autumn storm had turned the Weeping Delta into a vast, gray lake. The water inside the sunken castle wall was rising.
Tomas and Nessa stood on the slanting stone platform of Tier Three, fifty feet below the marsh level. The black water had risen six inches in four hours, lapping now against their chests as they worked under the pale emerald glow of four moss jars.
Above their heads, the great granite keystone of the magazine vault let out a low, grinding shriek—a sound like two millstones rubbing together without grain.
Nessa raised her sound horn against the northern pier. She listened for three heartbeats, her face turning pale beneath her vinegar breathing mask.
“The north wall has snapped four inches toward the sump,” Nessa reported, her voice echoing hollowly in the vault. “The soaked peat outside is exerting thirty tons of deep water pressure against the foundation stones. If we touch the crates on Tier Three without wooden props the pier, the entire vault will fold inward like a kicked card table.”
Tomas looked at the crates. Tier Three held Units Twenty-One through Thirty, fully underwater now beneath three feet of oily, stale water. Beneath them lay Tier Four, containing Crates Thirty-One through Forty.
