The first major fault line closing happened on a Wednesday.
I woke at two before dawn as usual but this time the pulse in the floor was not the familiar gentle tide. It was urgent and directional, pulling toward the northwest where the archive had shown a primary fault line running through the edge of the Ashwood Court.
I was dressed and in the corridor before I was fully awake.
Caelan was already in the corridor.
We looked at each other in the dark.
“Northwest,” he said.
“Yes.”
He had a coat over his arm. He handed it to me. I put it on without comment. We went downstairs at a pace that was not quite running because running in a castle at two before dawn produces a specific kind of alarm in the staff that we were trying to avoid.
Oryn met us at the bottom of the main stairs. “I fe
