POV: Mara
Pia vibrates like a plucked string all morning. “Qualifiers!” she whispers every time Silvie looks away. “Glasswalkers! You can hear the panels sing when they step right. Come on, say you’ll come on break. Say it.”
“On break,” I promise, because saying no to her joy feels like kicking a basket of kittens.
The trial grounds stretch along a scaffold near the river—a practice run of glass panels mounted above sand. The Lantern Guild has strung them with our filigreed wires, fresh from the vats. They glint pale blue, green, white. Signs read: NO SHOES and NO HEROICS and SAND IS YOUR FRIEND. Apprentices stretch their toes and whisper their own rules: step soft, breath steady, weight forward, never look straight down.
Lorre spots us. “Hearthworks,” she calls, pretending to be stern. “If you break anything but a bad habit, I’ll bill Silvie.”
“Bill me,” Pia says, spinning once. “I’m wealthy in fictional coins.”
I watch a boy with wrists like reeds test the first panel. It hums when he sets weight properly, a tone that tucks under my ribs. Aster hums back before I can stop her. There. The city is an instrument. I had suspected as much.
“You hear it?” Lorre asks, too casual.
“I hear everything,” I say. “That’s different.”
“Different is why we’re alive,” she says. “Stand there.” She points to a small table with linen, a splint kit, and a crock of salve. “If someone twists an ankle, you’re hands.”
“I can splint,” I answer. Burns teach you angles: cool, elevate, bind, don’t panic.
The first three apprentices move like cautious cats. The fourth—too proud—pushes speed and misses a beat. The panel pings wrong, and his foot slides. He drops—thank the Guild for sand—half on the frame, half into grit.
He curses very politely.
“Down,” I call, jogging over with linen. “Breathe. Don’t hop. Hopping makes heroes with worse ankles.”
He obeys, biting his lip hard enough to indent. I slide my palm under the ankle, gentle. Heat there—fresh, swelling to come. “Name?”
“Caro.”
“Of course it is,” Pia says, which makes him grin despite the pain.
“Can you flex?” I ask. He does, a hiss between teeth. Not broken. “Good news. Your ankle wants attention, not a funeral.”
I wrap cool linen, firm and even, then pad both sides with folded cloth and brace with a thin wooden splint I pull from the kit. I tie off and tuck the knot where it won’t snag. “Up, with help,” I say, offering my shoulder. “No weight. Your pride can carry you.”
He snorts and leans, using me as a post. Lorre is there instantly to take him. “Benches,” she orders. “And brag later.”
“Thank you,” Caro says to me, cheeks pink. “You smell like lemons.”
“That’s Pia’s fault,” I say.
She curtsies. “I’m warm.”
We stay through two more rounds. I hand water, press salve into bruised shins, tell a girl with shaking fingers that shaking means living. The tones of the panels layer until I can almost predict a slip before it happens, the way a song announces its wrong note a bar early.
“Lunch,” Pia says, tugging my sleeve. “Silvie gave us exactly ten minutes and a warning about time theft.”
We sit on the low wall with bread and fruit. The river breathes. Apprentice laughter comes in bursts like a flock of small birds.
Lorre leans a hip against the wall. “You’re steady,” she says to me, and I can tell she means it the way Silvie means useful and indispensable stand for alive. “We need steady in First Aid next week. Two afternoons. Festival qualifiers run long.”
“Silvie—” I begin.
“Already signed off if you don’t drown in soup,” Lorre says, flicking a chit onto the bread. “Token pay. More important, you’ll learn where people break so you can stop them breaking.”
Pia gasps. “We’re invited!”
“I’m invited,” I correct.
“You’re plural!” she insists.
I tuck the chit into my apron. Aster’s hum is low-satisfied. Patterns. We learn more patterns.
When we return to Hearthworks, Silvie doesn’t interrogate. She simply points at the Tide Book and then at me, which translates to: write it in, own the time, prepare for the spillover. I enter it: Hearthworks—Mara—Guild First Aid, bells three to five. Pia cover ovens. The ledger looks pleased. Or I do.
“Good day?” Silvie asks, not looking up.
“No heroes,” I say. “One ankle. The city sings on glass.”
She grunts. “Tell it to sing fewer burned pans.”
We get back to work. By last bell my hands smell equally of soap, salve, and onion. When I climb into my corner cot, I think of the chalk sign: NO HEROICS. I wish we could post it on life.
Still, for what it's worth, I feel better. I don't think about Kaden, about Seris, about Moonfell all that much anymore. This is a new chapter in my life. And I intend to stand my ground now.