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Gerald heard the burn before he understood what had happened. A quick, wet sound — skin on hot steel — and then a sharp intake of breath that cut through the workshop’s hum. He was standing at the edge of the yard, near the well, as he did most mornings now after the chickens were

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The days had a shape now. Gerald woke before the light was right, or just after, and the shape was already there — waiting in the cold floor under his feet and the hum through the walls. He dressed. He set the table. He swept the hall and moved the chairs. He filled the woodbox.

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Gerald picked up the split log on his way to the woodshed. He did not think about it. His hands found the two halves where they had lain since yesterday, bark side warming in the early light, the pale wood still damp where it had been pressed against the flagstones. He carried them with the

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Wynn found him before he found her. He had come downstairs meaning to look for her — Da had said Wynn would tell him his duties. The morning was already moving around him, the kitchen sounds, the smell of porridge, the creak of the stair under his feet. But Wynn was in the front hall

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Gerald woke to the hum of the Hot House’s rune furnace. It sounded just like his dream. He could still feel it — the heat on his face, the bright gather of molten glass turning at the end of the pipe, the way his father’s hands moved it through the air like it weighed nothing.

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