Chapter 11 Open House

• The climb from the Meridian works was silent. No sound at all. Tram No. 7 shot up through layers of Lornwick, cutting through rock, old rivers, and ruins buried deep. Inside the ghostly car, Inspector Hester Krail sat stiff on a velvet seat. Her ivory ruler lay cold in her hand. Ossian Pike crouched on the floor, swaying, clutching his bloodied coat around his broken wrist.
• Marlow Reed stood near the front. His pale hands gripped a leather strap. He didn’t look out. He didn’t look at the conductor. He stared ahead, lost in the empty space inside his head. He had given up the memory of his own face to reset the city’s core lock. Where his reflection should have been, there was only an open, hollow room.
• When the tram burst above ground and crashed into the Harrow & Venn Loading Bay, the doors opened not into the usual dim factory light, but into total blackness.