For twenty heartbeats, nobody moved.
The nine Conclave elders sat frozen in their sandalwood chairs, their eyes darting between the clean exact diagrams on the slate board and the glowing golden spheres on the handcart. High Inquisitor Meng leaned forward until her many-sided emerald eye was only inches from the chalk formulas, whirring continuously as its internal lenses recorded the equations.
Behind the elders, several master fire engineers—mortal artisans with sixty years of pipe-fitting experience—were nodding in stunned, wild realization.
“By the gods...” an old master smith whispered, clutching his leather apron with calloused hands. “He’s right. The pipes scream at the ninety-degree tee every time the Great Chime sounds! That’s why the return lines always crack at the western seam!”
“The vapor blanket...” another artisan breathed, his eyes wide. “When the water boils too fast, it creates a pocket of steam that holds the heat inside! That’s why the bottom of the cooking pots always burn while the top is cold!”
The murmurs grew louder. It spread through the ranks of the master artisans like an uncontainable wave.
Grand Potion-maker Yan felt the floor slipping out from beneath his boots.
He rushed up to the easel, his face twisted in desperate, frantic fury. With a violent sweep of his fiery green jade scepter, he smashed the slate board, shattering the thick stone into a dozen jagged fragments that clattered across the flat stone slabs.
