The payroll record for the well warden Oudric Kann still hadn't been found when North Street sent over a house repair application.
The application came from a two-story residence on the west side of Clockmaker's Alley.
After the temperature dropped the previous night, the north wall inside the house froze again. Two iron bolts securing the support braces had frozen into the cracks in the wall. The mason didn't dare strike them directly, worried the cracks would spread along the corner, so he applied for Lutia to melt the ice around the bolts.
After reading the application, Greta added a line beside the area of operation.
Only the outer sides of the two iron bolts. Do not touch the wall or the ground below.
She handed the document to Lorne.
"A qualified mason will be present, and the owner has signed. Inspect the supports first, then decide whether to proceed."
Lorne took the document.
"What about the basement?"
"Sealed. No one goes down before the structural assessment."
Lutia stood beside the table.
"Is this house on the old seasonal boundary?"
"Less than ten paces from the boundary," Greta said. "So you only deal with the iron bolts in the wall. If you feel a pull from below, stop immediately."
"What if the pull is still there after I stop?"
"Tell Lorne."
"What if there's no time?"
Greta looked up.
"What do you mean, no time?"
Lutia didn't answer at once.
The copper conduit at the North Gate, the wind wheel in the bell tower, and that invisible old boundary had all operated on their own without anyone touching them. If something underground seized her resonance again, there would be a gap between discovering the anomaly and the engineers arriving.
"I don't know," she said.
"If you don't know, you can't make an exception for yourself in advance."
Greta tapped the application with the tip of her pen.
"Today's job is only two iron bolts. Every other problem means stop work, evacuate, and report."
Lutia looked at the newly added restriction.
"Understood."
The snow in Clockmaker's Alley had been packed hard by the residents' footsteps.
The Disaster Affairs Office had driven more stakes along the old seasonal boundary. Red cord ran from the mouth of the street over eaves, courtyard walls, and open areas piled with goods. Snow was still falling inside the cord; outside it, the roof tiles held only a thin layer of frost.
The house needing repairs stood just inside the red cord.
The owner was an elderly woman. When she opened the door, a string of keys of different sizes hung from her waist. She carried an oil lamp in her right hand and first made sure Lorne had brought the official application before letting them inside.
Two wooden braces had already been set against the north wall.
The mason crouched beside the wall, using a fine chisel to clear away loose mortar around the bolts. A crack in the wall ran down from beneath the window frame. At its widest, it could fit half a copper coin. The ice was concentrated around the two iron bolts. The area wasn't large, but it had firmly bonded the metal to the gaps between the stones.
"The supports need to be drawn in another half inch," the mason said. "Until the bolts are loosened, the wooden braces can't bear any weight."
Lorne checked the position inside the house.
"Where will the meltwater go?"
The mason pointed to a shallow iron pan at the foot of the wall.
"Into the pan. There's absorbent cloth underneath it. It won't run into the cracks in the floor."
"Are there water pipes inside the wall?"
"No. This side used to be an exterior wall. It was enclosed when the house was expanded."
Lutia looked at the wall.
"What's behind it?"
"A storage room," the owner said.
"Underground?"
"A cellar. The entrance has been nailed shut. The Disaster Affairs Office came by last night."
Lorne added the conditions at the site to the application, then had the mason mark out the area again.
The two bolts were less than a foot apart. The mason drew two circles slightly larger than a fist on the ice with white powder. The ice only needed to be melted deep enough to expose the metal; there was no need to deal with the ice deep in the cracks.
Lutia crouched down.
She held her hand in front of the first bolt without casting immediately.
There was a familiar winter resonance in the ice, more concentrated than ordinary frozen water. Its source traveled upward along the crack in the wall, accumulating only when it reached the bolt.
"This ice formed from below too," she said.
Lorne asked, "Is there a pull right now?"
"No."
"Can you proceed according to the application?"
"Yes."
Lorne had the owner, the mason, and the Disaster Affairs Office employee present reconfirm the boundaries and the conditions for stopping.
Lutia asked the mason, "Is this an official request?"
"It is," the mason said. "Melt only the ice outside the two bolts. Stop as soon as the metal is exposed."
"What if the ice in the wall cracks loosens?"
"Stop immediately."
"Will you handle the meltwater?"
"I will."
Lutia nodded.
She removed her right glove.
The abrasion in her palm had already formed a complete thin scab. Only a small patch near her thumb was still red. She held her hand in front of the first white circle and confirmed, in order, the positions of the wall, the bolt, the iron pan, and the floor.
The request: restore the ice inside the circle to water.
The boundary: limited to the white circle, to the depth of the metal's surface.
Restitution: leave the extracted cold in the prepared snow bag and send it to the centralized snow-storage site after the work was finished.
The first layer of ice quickly took on a watery sheen.
Droplets ran along the lower edge of the bolt and dripped into the iron pan. The mason caught them with a strip of cloth to keep the meltwater from splashing into the nearby cracks in the mortar.
Lutia didn't speed up.
The ice layer gradually thinned, and dark metal emerged from the center. There was no downward tug like the wind conduit at the North Gate, nor any tangled seasonal resonance from beneath the bell tower.
As soon as the first bolt was fully exposed, she stopped.
The mason gently turned it with a pair of pliers.
"That's enough."
Lorne noted the time on the casting form.
"Your hand?"
"Normal."
"Any pull from below?"
"No."
He let Lutia rest for a while before handling the second bolt.
The ice around the second was thicker than the first.
Lutia reconfirmed the request, boundary, and restitution before beginning to melt the ice.
The droplets fell into the iron pan just as before.
No water seeped beyond the white circle, and the crack in the wall didn't change.
When half the bolt had emerged, the snow bag to Lutia's right suddenly sank on one side.
She stopped.
The winter resonance gathered inside the bag was leaking away.
Not outward.
It was sinking through the floor.
The next instant, Lutia's palm went numb.
The cold in the wall cracks tightened downward at the same time, as if an invisible current below had caught the winter force she had just extracted.
She immediately withdrew her resonance.
"Stop."
The mason released the strip of cloth in his hand as well.
Lorne was already on his feet.
"A pull from below?"
"Yes."
"Everyone out."
The owner looked at the bolt that was only half exposed.
"What about the supports?"
The mason put away his pliers.
"Don't touch them yet. They're still holding."
A Disaster Affairs Office employee led the owner out first. The mason took away the tools near the wall and left the rest where they were.
Lutia stood too.
Her right hand had already left the ice, and the casting itself had stopped.
But the cold in the snow bag was still flowing downward.
"It hasn't stopped," she said.
Lorne had already reached the door.
"Has your resonance stopped?"
"Yes."
"Then get out."
Lutia looked at the snow bag as it gradually collapsed.
The snow inside was growing wet.
The winter force it was supposed to contain had been drawn away.
"It's catching my resonance."
Lorne stopped.
Lutia didn't move closer to the wall.
"The cold I extracted just now didn't stay in the snow bag. Something underground carried it away."
"Can you tell where it's going?"
"Along the old foundation."
"Fall back."
They had just retreated to the front hall when a very slight tremor passed beneath their feet.
The string of keys hanging beside the wall clinked once.
Someone outside immediately began shouting.
Lorne pushed open the door.
White mist was rising from the middle of Clockmaker's Alley.
The mist seeped simultaneously from several gaps between the paving stones. The old snow packed hard by residents that morning quickly acquired a transparent skin of ice, stretching north along the street.
The first things to freeze were the iron fixtures at the foot of the walls.
Then the drain covers.
The door rings.
The iron rim of a wooden cart's wheel parked by the road.
Every time the ice touched metal, the layer thickened in a ring before extending through the cracks in the stone toward the next spot.
Lorne immediately shouted toward the mouth of the street, "Seal both ends! Everyone off the road!"
The street patrol employees dropped their tools and stretched temporary ropes across both sides.
A merchant's wooden cart was stopped in the middle of the street.
He tried to pull it backward, but the wheel rim had already been bitten fast by the thin ice. His shoe slipped, and he slammed into the cart frame.
Two Disaster Affairs Office employees ran over and pulled him away from the cart, one on either side.
Lutia stopped on the doorstep.
The winter resonance underground was several times stronger than before.
She wasn't still casting.
The force had already left her control and was spreading on its own along old structures beneath the street.
"It amplified it," she said.
Lorne turned back.
"What?"
"I only moved the cold inside those two white circles."
She looked at the street.
"Now the entire underground is filled with the same resonance."
As he listened, Lorne drew the locations where the ice had first appeared on his record board.
Lutia sensed it again.
She didn't actively extend her perception underground.
The resonance was already strong enough to surge directly up through the gaps between the paving stones.
"It recognized my winter force and amplified it."
Lorne looked toward both ends of the street.
"This is the third time."
"What is?"
"The first was the underground freezing before the snowfall. The second was the nighttime temperature drop along the old boundary."
His pen tip stopped beside the newest ice.
"This is the third new form of freezing."
Lutia didn't answer.
On the north side of the street stood a public water station.
Two residents were carrying water buckets. Hearing the shouts about the street being closed, they were already preparing to leave, but one full wooden bucket had caught against the stone trough.
Ice was seeping out from beneath the water station.
"Put the bucket down!" Lorne shouted.
One of them immediately let go.
The other, a young man, was still gripping the bucket handle and trying to take the bucket with him. The iron bands around it had frozen to the edge of the trough. He gave it a hard upward tug, getting only a dull wooden thump in response.
"Forget the bucket!" an employee shouted nearby.
The man finally let go.
He prepared to step back, but his right foot wouldn't lift.
Frost had already crawled over the sole of his boot.
He lost his balance and grabbed the edge of the water station with both hands.
Two Disaster Affairs Office employees ran toward the station with a thick rope.
Lorne moved forward too.
Lutia stood on the doorstep when she suddenly heard a more concentrated tremor come from underground.
She looked toward the water station.
Iron pipes were buried beneath it.
The amplified winter resonance was gathering there.
"Back away!"
The first ice pillar burst through the paving stones outside the water station.
Ice and broken stone exploded outward.
The two employees immediately ducked, and the loop of rope fell from one of their hands.
The ice pillar rose to half a person's height before stopping.
The trapped man was still standing a few steps away, unable to pull out his right foot.
The Disaster Affairs Office employees grabbed the rope again.
"Get it around his waist first!"
One circled around the man's side while the other crouched low and pushed the rope over.
Lutia didn't move.
The winter force underground was gathering again.
This time it was deeper and faster.
"There's another one," she said.
Lorne turned back.
"Where?"
Lutia stared beneath the water station.
"I don't know."
"Then don't go in."
"It's still connected to my resonance."
"You stopped."
"But it recognizes me."
Lorne turned to the employees in the street.
"Get him out first!"
The rope finally went around the man's waist.
The two employees began pulling him away.
His right boot remained frozen to the stone, the leather stretching out of shape.
The underground tremor sounded again.
Lutia raised her right hand.
Lorne immediately seized her arm.
"Don't."
"I'm going to withdraw my resonance."
"Don't."
"Only my part."
"You don't know how much of it is yours now."
"I can tell the difference."
"Lutia, stop."
She heard him.
People in the street were still pulling on the rope.
The man's foot was already halfway out of his boot.
Yet the winter resonance underground was tightening more and more.
Lutia didn't call up any new cold, nor did she try to melt the ice.
She only reached for the seasonal trace that belonged to her.
It had originally been very thin.
Now it was mixed into the entire winter beneath the street.
The request: end the underground's response to her.
The boundary: withdraw only the part that belonged to her.
Restitution—
She paused for an instant.
She hadn't completed it.
The next tremor had already arrived.
Lutia pulled back.
A deep thud came from underground.
The force she had caught was far greater than she had expected.
The winter resonance throughout the street contracted toward a single point all at once.
"Let go!" Lorne shouted.
The ice split open from the center.
Lutia instinctively pulled back again.
The crack widened in an instant.
"Get down!"
A second ice pillar punched through the paving stones.
It didn't emerge beneath the trapped man. It erupted along the retreat path of the two Disaster Affairs Office employees.
Lorne released Lutia and charged straight out.
He grabbed the nearest employee by the back of the collar and dragged him to the side.
His right foot lost traction the moment it stepped onto the new ice.
His knee struck the paving stones first.
Still carried by his forward momentum, he shoved the employee away from the crack.
The ice pillar shot up on his left.
Shards of ice sliced open the shoulder of his dark-gray work coat, and the impact sent his whole body into the water station.
Lorne's back struck the edge of the stone trough, and he fell to the ground.
"Lorne!"
Lutia ran two steps forward.
Fine tremors spread through the ice beneath her feet.
She stopped immediately.
She was still holding on to that connection.
"Let go!" Lorne shouted, pushing himself upright.
Lutia released it.
The underground force instantly sank away.
The spreading ice stopped where it was.
Cracks still covered the area around the water station, but a third ice pillar did not rise.
The two Disaster Affairs Office employees pulled the trapped man out of his boot. He had only one sock left on his right foot, and they dragged him straight into the nearby entryway.
Another employee used the back of an axe to break the ice holding the wooden bucket in place, only for Lorne to shout at him.
"Don't touch the street again! Wait for the engineers!"
Lutia stood in front of the doorstep.
She didn't walk toward Lorne.
The ice shards had cut open the coat over his left shoulder, and blood was quickly seeping through. His right knee was bent, and he didn't stand up for a while.
Lutia's right hand had gone numb too.
From her fingertips to her palm, all that remained was a rigid weight.
By the time Greta arrived, the clinic staff were already treating Lorne's shoulder.
She first confirmed that both ends of the street had been sealed, then called the employees at the scene over one by one.
"What did she do after the first ice pillar appeared?"
One of the employees said, "She tried to sever the connection between underground and herself."
Greta turned to Lutia.
"Did you have permission?"
"No."
"Did Lorne stop you?"
"Yes."
"Did you hear him?"
"I heard him."
Greta looked at her for several seconds.
"Then it wasn't because you didn't understand."
Lutia didn't answer.
The ends of her hair hung in front of her cloak.
Several strands had gone nearly white amid the original tender green.
Greta turned to the mason.
"Did the casting inside the house exceed the boundary?"
"No," the mason said. "She stopped on her own halfway through the second one."
"What happened to the people inside after the anomaly appeared?"
"Everyone got out."
Greta had the employees collect the casting form, the site diagram, and Lorne's record board.
"From this moment on, Lutia is suspended from all routine casting."
Lutia looked up.
"Including first-circle resonance?"
"Including that."
"What if someone's life is in danger?"
"You are not to cast on your own unless the person in charge at the scene or a medical professional explicitly asks you to."
"The underground will still recognize my resonance."
"Which is why you must not touch it again."
"What if it connects to me on its own?"
"Report it."
"No one else can feel it."
"Then tell them what you feel."
Greta's gaze settled on Lutia's right hand.
"You don't decide what happens next."
Lutia asked no more questions.
She was taken back to the old council hall to have her temperature and resonance condition checked.
Before leaving, she looked back.
The medical staff had already cut away the torn fabric over Lorne's left shoulder. The wound wasn't deep enough to show bone, but the impact site was swelling rapidly. Another person was examining his right knee, wrapping a support band around the site of the old injury.
"I want to talk to him first," Lutia said.
Greta didn't answer for him.
She looked at Lorne.
Lorne lowered his head and watched the medical staff secure his knee.
"We'll talk when we get back."
He didn't call Lutia over.
Back at the old council hall, Lutia was assigned to the medical room.
Her temperature was nearly one degree lower than it had been that morning.
After her right hand was soaked in warm water, feeling still hadn't fully returned to her fingertips. The medical staff replaced the old bandage on her palm, reexamined the original abrasion, and also required her not to touch ice or snow for the rest of the day or leave the council hall alone.
That evening, Greta brought a new restriction order.
First: suspend all routine casting.
Second: do not approach known underground passages, the sealed levels of the bell tower, or the old seasonal boundary.
Third: any seasonal perception was limited to reporting. She was not to investigate the source on her own.
Fourth: Lorne could no longer supervise field operations alone. At least one other Disaster Affairs Office employee had to be present as well.
Lutia finished reading the last item.
"Lorne isn't responsible for me anymore?"
"He's still the records officer responsible for you," Greta said. "He won't go into the field until his injuries heal."
"And after that?"
"We'll see."
"See what?"
"His injuries, the investigation results, and whether you can follow the new restrictions."
Lutia set the restriction order back on the table.
"He doesn't trust me anymore."
Greta didn't answer that.
She only said, "He told you to stop today, and you didn't."
"I know."
"Then remember that first."
"I wasn't trying to prove I could handle it."
"I didn't say you were."
Lutia looked at her right hand.
Greta stood.
"Read the restriction order and sign it. Your left hand works too."
She left the medical room.
After a while, footsteps sounded outside the door again.
Lorne had changed into an undamaged coat. His left shoulder was secured with a bandage, and his right leg was stiffer than usual when he walked.
He didn't come in. He only stopped at the doorway and set a folder on the corner of the table.
"Preliminary field report."
Greta had already left.
Lutia stood.
"Your shoulder—"
"No fracture."
"Your right leg?"
"A sprain. The old injury took a hit."
"I'm sorry."
Lorne didn't say it was okay.
He remained outside the door.
"You stayed within the boundary in the house," he said. "And you stopped when you detected the pull."
Lutia waited.
"Then I told you to stop."
"I know."
"You still acted."
"That man was trapped on the ice."
"They'd already gotten the rope around him."
"There was another pressure building underground."
"You didn't know where it would emerge."
"I could feel it gathering."
"And the location changed."
Lutia looked at the support bandage on his left shoulder.
"Because I pulled on the connection."
"Yes."
"I thought withdrawing only my own resonance didn't count as expanding the casting."
Lorne glanced at her.
"But you didn't know how much of what was underground was still yours."
Lutia didn't answer.
"I didn't complete the restitution," she said after a while.
"I know."
"There wasn't time."
Lorne leaned against the doorframe and shifted the position of his right foot.
"The people ahead of you didn't finish handling the situation as quickly as you wanted, so you did it yourself."
"That person could have been hurt."
"Could have."
"I couldn't do nothing."
"You already did something."
Lutia looked up.
"You reported the anomaly, told everyone to retreat, and told us the second pressure was building," Lorne said. "All of that was action."
"It wasn't fast enough."
"So you made the decision for everyone at the scene and took another risk."
Someone pushed a cart of documents past in the corridor outside.
The wooden wheels crossed the joints in the stone floor, clattering several times in a row.
Lutia looked at the restriction order on the table.
"If I hadn't pulled, it might have emerged beneath that man's feet."
"Might have."
"But now you're the one who got hurt."
"Yes."
"Because of me."
Lorne didn't try to change her words for her.
Feeling still hadn't returned to Lutia's right hand.
"What should I do now?"
"Follow the restriction order for now."
"That's not what I meant."
Lorne was silent for a while.
"That's all I can answer right now."
Lutia took a step forward.
Lorne didn't move aside to make room in the doorway as he usually did, nor did he come inside.
"Are you going to keep being my records officer?" she asked.
"For now."
"And after that?"
"We'll talk about that later."
He turned and left.
Lutia didn't follow him out.
The new restriction order on the table still wasn't signed.
At the bottom were two spaces, one for the Disaster Affairs Office and one for the restricted individual.
She picked up the pen.
Her right hand couldn't hold it steadily. When the tip touched down the first time, it dragged a short mark across the paper.
Lutia moved the pen to her left hand and slowly wrote her name.
Outside the window, snow still fell along the boundary established three hundred years ago.
She left the signed restriction order on the table and didn't touch the window glass again.