Chapter 24: The Night Shift

Rook came down Cooper's Stair at noon on the seventeenth with two bailiffs and a clerk, slowly, so the yard could watch. Three days since the stair on the fourteenth. The sixteenth had passed with no inspector at the gate, the public test Ilan demanded standing in the inspection's place. Dace had told him at breakfast that the Coalgate merchant would come back within the week with her full order, in the open. Rook stopped at the door rail and held out a sheet and a pen. "Final notice," Rook said. "Personal service. Your hand on the receipt." "Read it." The clerk read it like a man reading a menu in a language he disliked. Levy arrears for October and November, and the lodging rate on thirty-three declared mouths. All due on the thirtieth. Ilan reached for the pen with his right hand out of habit. The cold ran out…