19 #2

Eda waited until the footsteps faded.

“He likes checking hands,” she whispered. “Looks for burns.”

Isolde hid her left inside the apron.

They reached the boiler room.

Two furnaces heated copper tanks. The red and green wheels occupied one wall. A stoker slept in a chair. Another checked the pressure. Three guards watched the outer door.

The river sluice gate depended on the green wheel. A blue chain blocked it from turning. The red controlled steam to the kitchens.

“The chain has a key,” Eda said. “The head stoker keeps it in his boot.”

“Which one is he?” Isolde asked.

The girl pointed to the man who was awake.

“Torel. His son is in the chamber.”

Isolde searched for the name among the children. A nine-year-old boy had the same chin.

“Does he know where he is?”

“He helped hide him.”

Kaoran looked through the grate.

“We can get his attention. The guards are watching the door.”

Eda took out the ladle and struck the pipe three times.

Torel raised his head.

One knock. A pause. Two.

The stoker dropped a shovel. Picking it up, he moved closer to the grate.

“How many?” he murmured.

“Eleven,” Eda replied.

“The gate is closed on Sorev’s order. The key opens the chain. The mechanism has a second lock inside the channel.”

“Access?”

“Through the ash shaft. A guard is watching below.”

“Turn the wheel when you hear a large pot,” Isolde said. “We’ll release the second lock.”

Torel saw her face through the grate. He recognized a version of the stories.

“The nameless fire,” he whispered.

“Today it stirs water.”

Eda hid a smile.

Torel returned to the furnace.

The ash shaft descended from the corner. Kaoran opened the cover. The draft coated their clothes in black dust. Eda went first. Isolde next. Kaoran had to turn so his staff would fit.

Below, the channel was four paces wide. The sluice gate cut off the water with vertical bars. A blue plate monitored the closure. The guard sat on a crate with his back against the wall.

Kaoran threw a stone to the far end.

The man raised his lamp. Eda emerged from the shaft and ran behind a pillar. Isolde stepped into the current. Water reached her waist.

The guard turned.

“Halt!”

Kaoran dropped from above and struck his shoulder with both feet. They rolled across the stone. Isolde caught the lamp before it touched the water.

Eda took the key ring.

“The long one,” she said.

She opened the second lock.

The guard reached for a whistle. Kaoran held him. Isolde set the lamp before the man’s face.

“You can stay tied until the inspection ends or help us get children out.”

“You’re entering a royal area.”

“The children work in it.”

“The order requires kinship verification.”

“Look at her token,” Isolde asked. “Her mother’s name is written on it.”

Eda showed her kitchen helper’s bracelet.

“Yesterday I brought soup to your post. My mother was waiting on the stairs,” Eda said. “This morning, you want to take me to a house I don’t know.”

The guard looked at the girl.

“I’ll stay tied.”

“Choice accepted,” Kaoran said.

They used his belt and a rope from the shaft. Kaoran left the knot in front. Eda put the key beside the man’s feet.

“When you hear the children on the other side, you can untie yourself,” she said. “Then you’ll have another choice.”

The blue plate was still active. Opening the sluice gate would send a signal to the bridge post.

Isolde examined the circuit. Two copper wires entered the stone. One carried the pulse upward. The other measured the bars’ position.

“We can make it register closed,” she said.

Kaoran followed the wire.

“If we heat this one, the expansion keeps pressure on the contact.”

“I need a tiny flame while it turns.”

“The plate will feel it.”

“For one heartbeat. The furnaces will cover the signature if Torel opens the steam at the same time.”

Eda raised her ladle.

“The big pot.”

She returned to the shaft and climbed toward the kitchens.

Isolde counted the time. The raid moved overhead. She heard doors, orders, and overturned baskets.

A pot rang three times.

Torel turned the green wheel.

Isolde heated the contact. The plate shone. Steam from the furnaces entered the pipes and filled the circuit with hundreds of small pulses. Kaoran pulled the inner lock.

The sluice gate began to rise.

Water struck their legs. The bound guard rolled toward the edge. Kaoran caught his coat and dragged him behind the pillar.

“The rope!” he shouted.

Isolde closed her core. The contact retained enough heat. The plate registered the bars as closed while the current opened a passage underneath.

A horn sounded on the bridge.

They had detected something.

“Let’s go,” Kaoran said.

They climbed the shaft. Eda waited, her face sooty.

“Sorev has closed the east kitchen. Miren is taking the children through the gallery.”

“And Maive?”

“She’s spilled three baskets in front of the inspection.”

* * *

Maive had chosen Varek’s sheets.

She spread them across the laundry’s wet floor. Each bore the commission’s embroidered seal. The guards had to pick them up before continuing or acknowledge in writing that they had damaged the chief councilor’s property.

Sorev ordered them to walk over the sheets.

Two soldiers obeyed. Orla wrote down their names.

“Replacement will be charged to your unit,” she said.

“Charge it to the river.”

“The river has no wages.”

Sorev shoved a sheet aside with his boot.

“We’re looking for eleven hidden minors, seditious documents, and a woman connected to the fire at Depot Twenty-Two.”

“We keep dirty laundry here,” Maive replied. “Sedition usually comes in better cloth.”

The guards searched lockers, wagons, and tanks. One found the door behind the soap storehouse.

Orla had left the staircase open.

The visible route led to an empty cistern. Three baskets held false tokens, bread, and cloaks. Sorev sent eight men after the decoy.

Maive waited until they went down.

“Now,” she told the laundresses.

The women released the rinsing gate. Hundreds of liters of water entered the cistern through a side channel. The guards had to climb out toward the opposite street.

The route was unusable for one night. It also drew eight men away from the kitchen.

Orla carried Lenda’s page inside a sealed basket. She crossed the bridge with the clean laundry. The guard activated the blue plate. The paper stayed cold between two tablecloths.

“Name?” he asked.

“Orla Ves. South tower.”

“Your token is listed for review.”

“I’ve been under review for almost four years. It’s the steadiest relationship in my life.”

The man compared her face with a list.

“You wait here.”

Orla set the basket on the ground.

The laundresses’ signal depended on movement. Stopping her could keep Aelyn from receiving the document. She also had other routes. Orla had planned for both possibilities.

She pulled a thread from her sleeve and tied it to the handle with three knots.

A kitchen helper passed to collect vegetables. She saw the signal, took a tablecloth from the basket, and kept walking.

Lenda’s page changed hands.

* * *

Miren led the children through the service gallery.

The passage ran between the storeroom ceiling and the map room floor. It had two exits to the kitchens and a grate above the east corridor. Adults moved on their knees. The children could walk bent over.

Isolde, Kaoran, and Eda caught up near the lattice.

“The gate is open,” Isolde said.

Miren divided the group. Six would go with Kaoran. Five would follow Isolde. Eda wanted to stay with her brother Lur.

“You know the way down to the channel,” Miren told her. “You lead the first group.”

“Lur comes with me.”

“He comes with you.”

The boy took her hand.

The sound of armor came from the corridor.

Miren brought an eye to the lattice.

“Aelyn.”

Isolde stopped moving.

The councilor appeared below with Neral, a healer, and four guards. She wore blue-gray. The civil affairs brooch fastened her cloak. Her black hair was braided over one shoulder, as in Rheskan’s courtyard. Her face was thinner, with a line of weariness beside her mouth.

Isolde brought her hand toward the wood.

She remembered Aelyn sitting beside her after that first patrol, the folders closed while she managed to tell what had happened.

They were sixteen. Her friend had waited without asking her to stop trembling.

Now she wore a brooch Isolde knew only from letters, and four guards followed her steps.

She took her fingers from the lattice so the wood would not creak.

Aelyn stopped in front of Sorev.

“The kinship review was scheduled for dawn,” she said.

“Security moved it forward.”

“My office directs the protection of minors registered in work areas.”

“These minors have no valid registration.”

“Then you have no basis for knowing their names.”

Sorev handed over a list.

Aelyn read it. Neral opened his book. The healer examined the order.

“Nine addresses were corrected after the commission drew up this list,” Aelyn said. “You’re looking for children using the census you just erased.”

“The regency authorized the inspection.”

“Darian signs a security review. Varek adds a guardianship order. The purposes differ.”

“The result falls under Council authority.”

“Neral, copy both authorizations and who answers for each,” Aelyn said. “Until we clarify this, each child stays with the adult listed on the previous token.”

Sorev pointed to the kitchens.

“Eleven have disappeared.”

“Perhaps your armed arrival frightened them.”

“I’m searching the galleries.”

Isolde saw the captain’s hand approach the lattice.

Aelyn stepped forward.

“First you enter this list in the record. Name, previous address, corrected address, person requesting guardianship, and proposed destination. Neral will make a copy for each child.”

“That takes an hour.”

“You chose eleven cases.”

Sorev clenched his jaw.

“The children can get out during the delay.”

“Then you prove the inspection sought immediate detention and omitted safeguards.”

The argument bought time with ink.

Miren pointed to the exit.

Kaoran took the first group toward the channel stairs. Eda led. Isolde was to follow with the others.