Chapter 29: The Last Lamp

The nail struck the lamp glass twice. A pause, then twice again. Ilan came up off the bench with his ribs shouting and his breath standing in front of his face. The small one was under the lamp hook at the dry room door, tapping the glass as if the flame had not understood. The flame behind it had gone the colour of tea. "Three," the small one said. It held up three fingers, and the nail tapped again. Sera was already at the door with the book open on her forearm and chalk in her fist, back from the dial in the core chamber. "The reserve hasn't moved," she said. "Same mark as at dusk, the minimum. The nursery line is down to a thread. Everything else on the dial holds." "Since when?" "A day and a half it crept, and I wrote 'frost' in the margin myself." She…