POV: Mara
“Field trip,” Pia declares, thrusting a basket at my belly. “We’re helping the Lantern Guild replace storm glass. Pretend you love ladders.”
“I don’t love ladders,” I say.
“You will when you see the dye vats.”
“Those aren’t ladders.”
“They are to your soul,” she chirps, dragging me down the service stairs and out into a lane washed pale by last night’s rain.
The Lantern Guild hall is a cathedral for broken light. Sheets of glass lean against walls; shards sort themselves into bins labeled with chalk—amber, tide-blue, moonmilk, bruise-violet. Racks of wire frames hang like the exoskeletons of strange fish. The dye vats hum along the far side—a line of copper bellies steaming gently. The air smells like vinegar, salt, metal, and something sweet I can’t name.
“Guildmaster!” Pia sings, bouncing up to a woman with hair shaved at the sides and a long braid down the back. Her arms are a gallery of scars and ink lines that look like map routes. “Brought you two sets of hands and zero common sense.”
“Good,” the woman says, deadpan. “Common sense breaks glass.” She looks me over. “You’re the one who dragged a child out of the gap.”
“People keep remembering that,” I mutter.
“City likes a story where someone doesn’t die.” She offers a hand. “I’m Lorre. Try not to bleed too much. It attracts apprentices.”
Pia gasps. “We’re in danger.”
Lorre snorts. “Tables there. We’re threading and re-soldering. Leave the hotter work to us.” She points me toward a bench where lantern panels lie like translucent leaves. Each rectangle bears a faint rune filigree, tight loops like vines.
“The runes matter,” Lorre says, leaning over my shoulder as I study the pattern. “Not for magic, for memory. Each lantern hums a note into the street it hangs over. If we get the loops wrong, the note sours, and people start dreaming crooked.”
“Crooked?” I echo.
“Nightmares, fog headaches, scowls that don’t go away,” she says. “The city is a body. The lanterns are nerves.”
Aster lifts her face inside me, tilting toward the vats.
“Cool… hum.”
I take a panel and begin threading thin wire along the rune tracks. The dye glazes the glass with feather-sheer color; when I move, the light slips through and paints my fingers.
“Careful,” Pia warns, eyeing the soldering iron Lorre brings. “It bites.”
“I know bites,” I say calmly, and fuse wire to copper points, following the pattern like a song I didn’t know I knew.
An hour passes in the kind of quiet that doesn’t bruise. Apprentices whisper, laugh, sing snatches of a market tune. Lorre corrects a boy’s angle without humiliating his hands. Pia carries finished pieces to a rack and brings new ones in stacks that clack like polite teeth.
When Lorre asks for runners to the dye vats, Pia volunteers us both and winks. We carry a tray of panels to the copper line. The vats sway with thick color—indigo, smoke green, pale gold, a milky white that looks like it would taste like moon if moon were drink.
“Stand there,” the dye master says, pointing. “Hold straight. No dipping with your wrists. We pour. You breathe.”
He lifts a ladle and pours pale gold over a panel in a single slow stripe. The scent rises—cool, green, like cut vines after rain. My lungs widen without my consent. Aster presses close, calm and aching at once.
“Home,” she whispers, surprised by her own word.
I exhale too long and realize I’ve gone lightheaded. “Sorry,” I mutter, steadying the tray on the block.
“First time does that,” the dye master says, not unkind. “Color talks to some people. No shame in hearing it.”
“I don’t hear anything,” I lie.
“You’d be the first,” he replies, tipping indigo into a rim, the liquid blue-black like a bruise healing. “Drink water.”
Pia slips a cup into my hand. “Proof I’m good at warm,” she sings softly.
I drink. My pulse settles. The edges of the world stop looking like they want to melt.
By afternoon, we’ve threaded and fused and glazed a small army of lantern panels. Lorre inspects our work and grunts approval. “Not sloppy. Sloppy light attracts thieves.”
“I prefer my thieves charming,” Pia says.
“You prefer everyone charming.”
“Untrue,” she says gravely. “I prefer Silvie terrifying.”
Lorre signs a chit and hands it to me. “Hearthworks,” she says. “For services rendered. Bring it to your Matron. Also—” She jerks her chin toward the racks. “We’re behind. If Silvie can spare you once a week, I’ll take the hands.”
“Once a week?” Pia breathes.
“Small contract,” Lorre clarifies. “Token pay, steady tea, no apprentices kissing your knuckles unless invited.”
Pia clutches my arm. “We’re invited.”
I tuck the chit into my apron. “We’ll ask.”
On our way back, the lane glows with the first relit lanterns, fresh panels singing faint and sweet. The city feels… smoother. As if the day has been combed.
At the citadel gate, a Shield stops us long enough to tap the chit, nod at the seal, and murmur to me, “Good work.” He means the gap. I pretend he means the wire.
Back in Hearthworks, Silvie doesn’t smile, which is how I know she’s pleased. She reads the chit, slides it into the Tide Book, and says, “Weekly. You’ll go with Pia. If you break, you both break.”
“Understood,” I say.
Pia peeks around me. “Do we get extra dumplings?”
“No,” Silvie says. “You get to keep your fingers.”
“That’s also good,” Pia decides.
Aster tucks herself against my heartbeat, soothed by the day’s colors.
“Once a week,” she murmurs, like a promise.