Chapter 206: Wellworks

The east side’s clock was running out of daylight.

Keth pushed through the pump house door and into the darkness with his red book in hand.

Austin Veyron’s team followed him inside.

The tunnels beneath the wellworks were full of water. They were hot, and loud with the pressure of all the pipes above them. Iron piping ran along the ceiling, and red contract chains were bolted to it. Painted signs at every turn showed who had control over the flow. The air tasted of rust and wet stone.

ONLY THE CHARTER HOLDER TURNS THE DEEP SLUICE.

Vela flowed through the water beside them. Her red chains trailed behind her as they went deeper into the wellworks, and whenever the chains tugged, she rippled with the motion.

"The deep sluice is ahead," Vela said. "If Keth opens it, he’ll empty the east side’s water into his caravan tanks. He’s hoping the city will panic and buy more contracts from him."

Sera’s voice came through the relay slate from the market above.

"The public count is still holding. The south cistern is safe. As long as we keep the side valves open, the east side will be fine until sundown."

"The caravans are counting their water on the board too," Malen added. "He can’t take it all."

Keth’s voice boomed from somewhere ahead of them in the tunnels.

"Then I’ll take it all!"

More pump enforcers came out of the side tunnels.

They wore iron masks and red token collars around their necks. Their staffs had pressure sigils carved into them and could shoot blades of water at anyone they pointed at.

ENFORCERS GUARD THE CHARTER.

Rin went first. She swiped her claws at an enforcer’s collar, but the red metal didn’t break. It only sent sparks flying. Tamsin caught one of their staffs with her spear and pushed its blade of water into a drain. Veyra slipped between two blades of water and severed the red chain around another enforcer’s neck.

The collar went dark.

The enforcer stumbled backward. He took the red collar off his neck and stared at it in disbelief.

"I was only doing this because the pump warden was going to take from my family."

"Do you want to leave?" Veyra asked.

The man nodded.

"Then go up to the market and tell them which valves are open."

The enforcer took off running up the stairs.

Austin Veyron looked at the phrase that was controlling the other enforcers.

ENFORCERS GUARD THE CHARTER.

It wasn’t telling them to guard the water. It was telling them to guard the charter holder’s right to own it.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The ownership of the charter guard."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

He pressed the white root chain into the iron collar.

DEVOUR opened.

The phrase tasted like a valve key on one man’s belt, the only one that existed.

ENFORCERS GUARD THE CHARTER.

He devoured guard.

The collars went dark.

The remaining enforcers dropped their staffs. Some ran for the exit, while others just stood there, not knowing why they had been standing between a red book and the people of the city.

The team made their way to the deep sluice.

It was a circular room with water falling down a shaft in the center. The sound was so loud they could feel it in their teeth, and a cold mist hung over everything, beading on their skin. A large wheel controlled how much water could come out of the bottom. Red chains ran from the wheel to Vela, wrapped around her wrists, neck, and waist. Keth stood on the upper level with one hand on the wheel and the other on his red book.

"You’ve destroyed the market," Keth yelled down at them. "What happens when no one controls the water?"

Vela struggled against the chains. "The ones who need it will count it."

"People will count until they get thirsty enough to lie."

Keth turned the wheel.

A red phrase appeared on the walls of the room.

THE DEEP SLUICE BELONGS TO THE CHARTER HOLDER.

The water started pulling harder down the center shaft. Over the relay, they could hear the east side’s reservoir gauge dropping. ℴ𝗆

Austin Veyron could feel the water under the city. It was powerful, and DEVOUR wanted to consume it. He could eat the pressure of the water beneath the world and close the deep sluice forever. No one in Seregate would ever go thirsty, as long as they asked him.

Vela looked at him through her chains.

"Please don’t consume my water. Help me decide where it goes."

Veyra watched Austin Veyron.

"What do you want to consume?"

"The pressure."

"What would it make you?"

"The owner of the city’s thirst."

Sable’s crown shard lit up white on the wall of the room. "Then target the phrase that owns it."

Tessa and Ceryn laid Keth’s pump contracts out on a dry ledge and pinned them down against the spray.

"The wheel has three other valves connected to it," Ceryn said. "If Vela takes the south branch, the east side’s reservoir will refill. If the east branch stays open, the caravan tanks will empty back into the city’s water."

"Can she do both?" Austin Veyron asked.

"No," Vela said. "Not while I have the charter chains on me."

"I can use my heart shard to separate the chains from her flow," Nyra said. "I won’t break any pipes or take her water."

"Do you choose this?" Austin Veyron asked.

"Yes."

Nyra lifted the heart shard into the air.

Blue-black lines formed around the red chains. Keth growled and turned the wheel again. Water began to rise around them, and they could feel themselves being pulled toward the center shaft. Tamsin grabbed a pipe to hold herself in place and pulled Tessa out of the current.

Austin Veyron found the phrase.

THE DEEP SLUICE BELONGS TO THE CHARTER HOLDER.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The ownership of the deep sluice."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

He wrapped the root chain around the red line on the wheel.

DEVOUR opened.

The phrase tasted like all the water in the world being funneled through one man’s hand.

THE DEEP SLUICE BELONGS TO THE CHARTER HOLDER.

He devoured belongs.

The wheel broke in half.

Vela’s chains loosened, but they didn’t break. The water rushed through the room faster than before.

"Now!" Vela shouted.

"The east side’s reservoir is almost empty," Sera said over the relay. "The south is fine. Where should I send it?"

"South and east," Vela said. "The south will keep the city alive, and the east will return the caravans’ water to the public."

The workers in the market heard her through the relay. Sera and the former enforcer opened the side valves, and Malen emptied the caravan tanks back into the city’s water.

Water rushed through the south branch with a deep, hollow roar.

The gauge on the east side began to rise.

Keth looked down at the broken ledger in his hands.

"You’ll flood the market with water they didn’t pay for."

"We’ll give them the choice to pay," Vela said.

Keth threw a red ink bomb on the floor and ran off into the darkness of the wellworks. By the time the smoke cleared, he was gone.

Tessa found a page from his book near the mouth of the tunnel.

It had a map of a coastline marked with salt symbols and a list of buyers.

SALT LEDGER COAST.

Beneath it, only one line was still legible.

THE BLUE MERCHANTS ARE BUYING WATER ROADS.

Malen read it and looked up at Vela. "He wasn’t acting alone. The Blue Merchants have been buying up the wells and caravan passes all along the coast. He was just working for them."

Vela rose out of the water shaft. The chains were gone, but she looked weak and faded, her edges thin and rippling like a pool about to dry up.

"We’ll need to make new rules for the pumps in the city," she said. "I’ll go wherever the city needs me, but I won’t be an owner."

Sera agreed. "We can make the well stewards accountable to the public. The water demon will decide where the water goes, and the city will keep track of the pressure. No more secret owners."

Austin Veyron looked at the map of the Salt Ledger Coast.

Keth had gotten away, but he’d left them something bigger to find.

The next hunger wasn’t under the world.

It was on the surface.