The air hit them like a physical wave of cold river water. It rushed down the four open air-flow chimney pipes with a roaring, churning vortex that tore the vinegar cloths from their faces, whipped Hester Quill’s woolen shawl across her shoulders. Then it sent sixty years of piled up mold dust and paper shavings swirling into a blinding gray cloud. But it was clean, living air. It was cold, sweet, sharp with the damp smell of falling October rain and woodsmoke from the chimney pots of Crown-Reach. Tomas Reed stood on the library ladder, his head thrown back, drinking the rushing current deep into his burning lungs until his blood sang with oxygen.
The dark-lantern on the reading stone base flared from a dying orange spark into a brilliant, golden torch, lighting up the entire vaulted expanse of Bay Fourteen with clean, clear clarity. In the sudden brightness, the horror of their confinement was laid bare. The black water in the gutter was already lapping at the lower edges of five hundred crates of defunct guild records. The rising tide from the river drain was bubbling up through the floor seams with increasing speed.
“The flappers are open!” Olla shouted, her voice trembling with thrilled relief as she scrambled down from the eastern stone base. She splashed through the water to Tomas’s side. “The air is back!”
