The first rope bit the air like a voice called and answered.
It descended slow and deliberate over the Vault's lintel, a black cage hammered from slate and iron, rings of coil built into its ribs, a small, cruel thing designed to hold a humming life like an exhibit behind glass. The extraction team's pulley sighed and the cage swung, an ugly pendulum against the morning sky. Men on the ridge guided it with practiced hands; below, the Council's sigil glinted on a dozen helmets like clean teeth.
Inside, the Vault held its breath the way a lung holds a secret. Jars stilled into halos. Palimpsest dust hovered like snow. Ilan's fingers tightened on the carved lintel until the knuckles blanched; she had shown them the grooves and how the stone liked to be sung to, and now she watched the ledger's tool settle toward the throat of a place that remembered too well.
