Chapter 27: The Sold Route

Dace came through the cellar passage door at a run and stopped with both hands on the frame, heaving. Ilan lay on the dry room floor with his cheek on the flags, where Sera's stop and a sleep like a dropped load had kept him through the whole of the day before. He got his left elbow under him. The strapping pulled at his ribs. "Ten hands," Dace said. "A squared log on a rope sling. Brickfall carts at the Weir Street sewer mouth since the small hours." "Whose hands?" "Ten Brickfall hands, the branch's four, Rook's two." Dace dragged in air. "And there's chalk on the drain walls past the old bulkhead. Fresh. Ring and bar. In a place where there is no drain." Ilan stood. He thought of the two arrows he had smeared with the heel of his hand. There had been a third he had never…