The People in the Workroom

Ysra stood when Ada entered, then caught the edge of the table as though the movement had cost more than she expected.

For one terrible moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Ada crossed the room and held her.

Her aunt smelled of paper, soap and the dry heat of the work lamps. She was thinner. Her right hand rested against Ada's back without its old certainty.

“You shouldn't be here,” Ysra whispered.

“Neither should you.”

Across the room, Pella had reached Tomar. He was a broad-faced man with silver hair cut close to his head and a stiffness in one knee that made him brace before turning. He held his granddaughter's face between his hands as though checking that she had arrived whole.

“You brought trouble,” he said.

“I inherited the talent.”

He laughed, then pressed his forehead to hers.

Neris stood by the door, listening to the passage.

“We don't have long. Hald is going back to Orison this afternoon. The guards will check the workroom after the next bell.”

Ada looked at the table. Several thin sheets lay beneath weights. Lines braided across them in patterns too dense to read at a glance. A strip at one edge held the same release notation as Ysra's old fragment, but reversed and tied into a locking sequence.

“That's what he wants,” Ada said.

Ysra nodded.

“The new Atlas layer will keep local copies from loosening their assigned burdens without a central counterseal. Even if every person on a bearing route agrees to a safer arrangement, their page won't hold against the master instruction.”

“Can you make it?”

“Yes.”

The answer struck harder than a refusal would have.

“Will you?”

Ysra looked at the door.

“They brought me your apprenticeship record. Your travel warrant. A report about an accident at Slate Spur.”

Ada's stomach tightened.

“They said you were untrained, in danger, likely to be arrested for interfering with a state measure. Hald offered to regularise your work if I helped complete the layer.”

“I don't need that bargain.”

“I know that now.”

Ada looked at her aunt's hands.

“Have you already done it?”

“The preparation. Not the final binding. I left weaknesses where the old release marks can still be reached. Hald may find them.”

Neris crossed the room and took a folded packet from inside her apron.

“This is the current capacity schedule. Not a summary. The receiving spines, the bearing allocations, the override sequence. I copied it while the clerks were comparing the revisions.”

Ada stared at the packet.

“Why didn't you send it?”

“Because sending a page out of this house is harder than bringing laundry in, apparently.”

Tomar limped towards the table.

“The figures are worse than the first proposal,” he said. “They've treated whole seasonal districts as though the people there can spend winter walking in circles. Some of those routes won't hold. They'll throw strain into neighbouring anchors.”

“So the Rebinding fails?” Ada asked.

“Not necessarily in the capital,” Ysra said. “That's the point. The central roads may remain beautiful while the outer network tears.”

Ada felt the room tilt in her understanding. Sile did not need every road to work. He needed the roads from which failure would be judged to work.

“We need to get you out,” Pella said.

Tomar looked towards a locked cabinet.

“My original ferry books are there.”

“Grandfather.”

“They show the actual bank changes. Without them, they'll call my objections memory.”

“Without you, they'll be books in a cupboard.”

Neris took a key from her apron.

“Hald has the main keys. I have the one for the records being prepared for transport.”

She opened the cabinet. They could not carry everything. Ada chose current copies and the oldest ground descriptions needed to test the new schedule. Tomar chose three thin books, each wrapped in cloth. Ysra left a stack of unfinished preparation sheets on the table.

“Burn them?” Ada asked.

“No,” Ysra said sharply. “Not in a working house. And not before we know what else the fire would take.”

Neris closed the cabinet.

“There are four other surveyors here,” she said. “Two want to leave. Two won't, because their families are under separate guarantees. We cannot move everyone through the washhouse without being stopped.”

The limit sat between them, ugly and real.

Orla opened the side door.

“The river service cart goes down after the meal,” she said. “It carries used linen and infirmary waste to the lower landing. I can put two passengers on the transfer list as patients needing care at Salt Steps. The others can travel with the next legitimate medical party if I can keep the argument going.”

“Will that put you in danger?” Ada asked.

“Yes,” Orla said. “So don't waste it by pretending the answer is no.”

Neris would remain. Her presence inside the Hall still gave the evidence a chance to be checked against records Sile could not dismiss as stolen fragments. She said it plainly, without offering herself as a sacrifice.

“I have work I can do here,” she told Ada. “You have work outside. Neither of us needs to make the other's work seem smaller.”

Ysra put her good hand against Ada's cheek.

“You came a long way.”

Ada closed her eyes for a moment.

“We still have to leave.”