Chapter 17: The Surviving Name

The residents' crawl behind the nursery alcoves had been cut for burrowing families, and a jar of water was the widest load it had ever carried. Ilan stood at its mouth with the lamp in his left hand and watched the first jar go into the sling. Brown glaze, a thumb of wax over the stopper, a bucket and a half of the new drain's clean water inside. Fourteen had come in from the hall since noon. Ten more waited at the hall's west end. "Eight, sixteen, twenty-four," Sera said behind him. She held her sheet against the wall and ticked the fourteenth. "Each stage held a count. Witnesses at first light." "It'll hold." "I don't sign hope. Three stages, witnesses at first light." She went down the crawl ahead of the first jar without waiting for an answer. Ilan followed, and behind him the chain took shape: Fen, the…