Lamp oil and old copper stank up the service run, and Hajin crouched on the inspection platform's last good plank. Cracked crystal lamps flickered along the ceiling, throwing his shadow across the crooked drop yawning beneath the one snapped support.
"Forty meters of crawling, and half the damn floor is rotten," he complained, testing the next board with one toe.
Ferra knelt beside the conductor without answering, running her bare palm along the copper strap bolted beneath the rail.
The strap ran the whole length of the run, green with age, pinned to the stone at every arm's length. Halfway along, her hand stopped where the copper split into two ragged ends a finger apart, eaten through by drip.
"There's your break," she grunted, "and nothing past it has felt a current in years."
"Can you patch it?"
"I can, but you're laying it."
"Me?" Hajin squawked, jabbing a thumb at his chest, "you're the smith, I'm the guy who hits things!"
