“I’m sorry, Artisan Master,” she said, once his tirade ended.

“As you should be! Don’t make me regret giving you this commission, Mage Lindin.”

Oh, how it galled her to be wrong in front of him. To have failed in a task she’d assumed would be simple. “I won’t, Artisan Master. You have my word.”

Arndel glared, unappeased. “You have but four more days to complete this clock, Mage Lindin. Do not waste them.”

Spurred mercilessly by such a public failure, the muffled snickers of the other mages burning in her ears, her second attempt at the clock housing succeeded. Shimmering like Lake Nartana, jewel of the Second district, the crystal’s flawless beauty stunned her to tears and helped to bolster her shaken confidence.

“Better,” said Arndel, grudging, called to inspect her progress. “Now get back to work.”

Hunted by a sense of urgency, haunted by the fear of failure, Barl finished Lady Grie’s nursery clock eight minutes before midnight on the fourth day following her disastrous mistake.

Alone in the artisanry, driven to sleeping there the past three nights so she might complete her task on time, she let the tears fall as she stared at the beautiful nursery clock.

I’m not imagining things. I was born for this. For greatness. Now not even Arndel will be able to deny it.

Next morning, Winsun Eve, Lady Grie herself came to hear the clock’s first sounding. Scant weeks from giving birth, her body bursting ripe, she swept into the artisanry’s private viewing room in a cloud of rich rose scent. Arndel trailed behind her like a fart.

“And of course, Lady Grie, if the piece does not meet with your approval we will simply begin again,” he declared, with a pained enthusiasm. “But I think you’ll agree that—”

“Hush,” said Lady Grie, one finger imperiously raised. Her sunrise silk gown rustled, murmuring of wealth and authority. “Incessant chatter bores me.”

Too exhausted to feel nervous, Barl clasped her hands tightly behind her back, kept her face tactfully blank and watched Ancilla Grie as the woman inspected her commission. Roamed her sharp gaze over the nursery clock’s arching crystal rainbow, with every bright colour shining, rested it on the small boy quaintly fishing with a rod and line, and then on the pond fringed with nodding bulrushes. Last of all she stared at the leaping crystal fish… and smiled.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I knew I wasn’t mistaken. That fool Tympanne said my design could not be executed, but I knew it could be… by the right mage.”

Torn between triumph and the importance of never criticising a Guild colleague, Arndel gobbled something in the back of his throat.

Lady Grie’s amethyst-blue stare shifted. “You. Young woman. Why do you stand there pretending servility? What have you to do with the making of my clock?”

Barl looked to Arndel. She knew better than to answer without his permission. The Artisan Master was resentful enough of her already. Offer him the smallest excuse to whet his temper on her, and he’d snatch it.