The dawn over Printer’s Alley began not with birdsong, but with the cold, rhythmic scrape of iron shovels clearing wet coal clinkers from the boiler chimney pipes of the river foundry two streets away.
Tomas Reed was awake two hours before the gray light filtered through the cracked attic dormer. He sat on the edge of his pine straw-tick, his bare feet resting on the icy floorboards. Then he went through the morning ritual that kept his right hand from freezing into a claw. In the tin bowl on the washstand, two fingers of warm water mingled with the sharp, acidic tang of cider vinegar and boiled willow bark. He soaked a square of coarse gray linen, wrapped it tight around his scarred forearm. Then he began the repetitions.
Thumb to index pad: press, count to five, release. Thumb to middle pad: press, count to five. The puckered, purplish gristle along the inner curve of his radius resisted. It tightened like soaked hemp cord left in the frost. A dull, grinding ache radiated upward into his elbow joint. The glass from the eel marsh had torn through his forearm. Then, Healer Alia had warned him that the cold of the high capital would seek out the wound like water seeking a cellar crack. Sixty-five percent grip. If he neglected the stretching for even two mornings, the fingers would curl into his palm and lock. He forced the little finger outward against the stiffness, breathing slowly through his nose until the…
