Soot and Lime

A shower of laths, dry horsehair mortar, and soot rained down on the trestle table. And right through the ragged hole in the plaster, through a cloud of gray lime, Leyla-tay came down feet first.

She hit the drop with a startled gasp, her hands clawing for a joist that was no longer there.

I moved two paces forward.

My boots slid through the fresh sawdust on the floorboards. I planted my right heel against the base of the center post, locked my knees, and caught her.

The impact hit my ribs like a sack of scrap brass.

She collided with my chest, her momentum driving us both back into the solid cedar timber. My arms locked around her waist and upper back by pure reflex. The air left my lungs in a sharp rush.

Plaster dust exploded around us, coating my hair, my eyes, and my collar.

We hit the upright post. My shoulders took the blow against the rough wood.

We didn't fall.

For three seconds, neither of us moved.

She was solid in my arms. Warm, breathing hard, and covered from forehead to boots in black soot and white lime. Her hands were clamped onto the lapels of my coat, fingers dug into the wool with a grip that could bend copper pipe.

Her face was four inches from mine.

A streak of gray dust ran from her temple across the bridge of her nose. Her dark hair was half-pulled from its leather tie, spilling around her ears in loose, wild strands. She smelled of woodsmoke, old grease, and cold rain.

My heart was beating in my throat.

It was adrenaline. Naturally. A seventy-pound woman falling from ten feet carries considerable kinetic force. Any auditor would have an elevated pulse.

"You're off your baseline," she whispered.

Her breath brushed against the skin of my collarbone.

"You're off your ceiling," I said.

She didn't let go of my lapels. Her fingers tightened on the heavy wool. Her knuckles were scraped red, dusted with lime.

"Did the scarf hold?" she asked.

I looked up through the jagged hole above our heads.

The new iron fishplate was there. She had managed to drive two lag bolts into the cedar heartwood before the lath collapsed under her. The bracket sat true, flush against the split, holding the two halves of the arch in rigid alignment.

The repair was rough. It was unpolished.

It was structurally flawless.

"It held," I said.

Her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. Some of the tension drained out of her frame, leaving her heavier against my chest.

"Told you," she muttered.

"You destroyed thirty square feet of historic decorative plaster."

"It was crumbling anyway."

"It was a registered architectural feature."

"It was holding eight pounds of pigeon droppings from 1950, Ozan."

She tried to push herself upright. Her left boot found the floor, but her knee gave a slight, unsteady wobble as her weight shifted. Her fingers stayed tangled in my coat.

I didn't let go of her waist.

It was a safety precaution. If she had a sprained ankle, releasing her immediately would result in a secondary impact with the floor. Standard field protocol.

"Can you stand?" I asked.

"I'm standing."

"You're leaning against my ribs."

"Your ribs are in my way."

"You fell on them."

"You caught me."

"A gross lapse in professional judgment," I said.

A tiny spark flared in her dark eyes. Even coated in plaster dust, with soot smeared across her cheekbone, she had a look that made a man want to check the integrity of his locks.

"You could have stepped aside," she said.

"And let you break your neck on my seventy-ton jack?"

"It would have saved Tash-Kala a lot of paperwork."

"I hate messy paperwork."

She let go of my lapels. One hand dropped to her side. The other lingered for half a second against my chest, her palm flat against the wool, feeling the steady thud of my ribs, before she pulled it away.

She took a step back.

Her boots crunched on broken plaster. She looked down at herself, then looked at me.

I looked at my coat. The charcoal wool was entirely white from the chest down. The shoulders were gray. A cobweb hung from my right pocket flap.

"Nice suit," she said.

"It was made in the North Quarter."

"They overcharged you."

"Undoubtedly."

I reached into my breast pocket for my handkerchief to wipe the dust from my eyes. My fingers found empty silk lining.

I looked at her.

Leyla offered a faint, unapologetic twitch of her upper lip. She reached into the pocket of her canvas work trousers, pulled out my clean linen handkerchief from yesterday, and used it to wipe the lime dust from her nose.

"You're shameless," I said.

"You're uninvited."

"I am the certified structural assessor for this block."

"You're a man with dirty shoulders and a broken jack."

"The jack is completely undamaged," I said, stepping over the rubble to check the pressure gauge. The cylinder was sitting at zero, its seals intact. "The ceiling, however, is currently missing its skin."

Uncle Demir appeared at the top of the pantry stairs, an iron ladle in one hand and a butcher's steel in the other. He stopped at the edge of the dining room, his rheumy eyes scanning the debris, the open hole in the lath, and the two of us standing in the middle of the dust storm.

Demir looked at Leyla. He looked at me.

He looked up at the ceiling.

"Mutton is simmering," Demir said in his gravelly rasp. "If you two are done remodeling the roof with your skulls, breakfast is on the table."

Demir turned around and walked back down the stairs without waiting for a reply.

Leyla blew a stray strand of hair off her forehead. It drifted back down immediately.

"He's very hospitable," I observed.

"He likes you better than the last inspector," she said, bending down to retrieve her fallen ratchet from the pile of plaster. "The last one left through the front window."

"I have better balance."

"You have too many jacks." She tucked the ratchet into her tool belt and wiped her palms on her thighs. "So. Did the beam pass or not?"

I stood by the support post, looking at her.

The rational, corporate response was to mark the test incomplete. To cite the unpermitted overhead structural modification, the ceiling collapse, and the presence of unauthorized personnel in an inspection envelope. That would trigger an immediate twenty-four-hour stop-work order and bring Tash-Kala's tactical crews to the door by nightfall.

The numbers on my dial gauge were twelve hundred pounds per square inch.

The deflection was two millimeters.

The cedar held.

"The main arch carries thirty percent over the municipal requirement," I said evenly.

Her chin lifted. A fierce, sudden satisfaction broke across her face, lighting up the sharp lines of her jaw.

"Say it louder," she said. "The walls might want to hear it."

"I'm writing it in the ledger," I said, pulling my aluminum clipboard from the case. "Along with a citation for sixteen structural violations, uninsulated steam lines, and gross endangerment of an auditor."

"You love the citations."

"They give my life structure."

"You're a tragic creature, Ozan-bek."

"I am an employed creature, Leyla-tay."

She walked toward the kitchen door, her gait steady now, her boots leaving white chalk prints across the dark pine floorboards. At the threshold, she stopped and turned.

"Demir made sheep's cheese pastry," she said, her voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that made my collar feel too tight. "And strong tea. You look like you just climbed out of a flour bin."

"I have work to finish."

"The tea is hot. The pastry is fresh. And you can tell me what Tash-Kala is going to do when your report says this room won't fall down."

I caught the swinging door with the flat of my palm before it could latch.

"Tash-Kala will send men with cutting torches," I said, stepping into the kitchen threshold. "Which means we have exactly twenty-four hours to find the original foundation plans."

Leyla paused beside the Great Stove, a battered tin teapot poised over two porcelain cups. She set the pot down with a sharp, metallic ring.

"Then drink your tea, Ozan-bek," she said. "We have a lot of stone to dig through."