Chapter 6: The Vent

The vent house stood behind the Gathering Hall, a squat stone room with one iron door.

Rosalind had not been inside since the night she shut it.

She stopped on the threshold, and her chest tightened before she took a single breath.

"We can do this tomorrow," Perrin said.

"No."

She had told the hall that the gas was not an accident.

Now she needed to find the proof, before anyone could scrub it away.

She went in with a lantern in her hand, and he followed with a crowbar.

The room was cold and bare.

The inside of the iron door still carried the marks of her nails.

There were five long scratches at the height of her shoulder.

She put her palm over them.

"Two hundred and twelve," Perrin said quietly behind her.

"I don't want to hear the number again."

"Then I won't say it."

She lowered her hand and looked around.

The gas had come up the cistern pipe that ran behind this room.

That was where the Gathering Hall's water came in from the hill.

Perrin put his shoulder to a rusted panel and pulled the crowbar down.

It gave with a shriek.

Behind it was the valve housing.

A black iron wheel as wide as a dinner plate was bolted to a pipe as thick as her arm.

"The healer said it was a leak," Perrin said. "A bad seal in the old line."

He kicked at the dust. "Dorian accepted that, and the guards cleaned this room out the next morning."

"A bad seal doesn't turn a wheel."

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