06:20 a.m. - At East Market Corner, Dawnspire.
Snow breathes in thin sheets over the gutters. Water runs clean along the new cut, slips past leaf traps that sit like wooden mouths under the curb. Three cistern corners crouch under damp burlap, dark and sound. The shoring frames hold the trench sides like open ribs. No slumps. No graves today.
Ryan keeps to the edge, hood up against a sour wind. He watches Tobyn take the ground like a carpenter takes a bench—square, simple, exact.
Tobyn (lifting a sieve onto trestles): "Screens here. Fine, middling, coarse. We grade the river's gift before it ruins our work."
He sets a short wooden box beside the forms. Two handles. A lid catches with pegs.
Tobyn (tapping the lid): "Slump box. We fill, we lift, we read the bow. No guessing. No magic."
He pins a slate at eye height. Chalk snaps clean across it.
Tobyn (writing): "Rule: 1 sack cement : 2 baskets sand : 3 baskets gravel. Water to a slow bend in the slump box."
Shovels pause. Faces tilt. Slum men and women in patched coats, hands wrapped in rags, lean close.
Dago Flint (flicking river grit from his palm): "Why the stones in the mix now? Mortar ran fine without them."
Tobyn (pointing at the slab form): "Mortar binds. Stones carry. Stones stop the slab from shrinking wrong. They give the mix bones."
Tamsin, hair under a faded scarf, rubs her arms.
Tamsin (glancing at the sky): "If the night bowls hard with frost, does the slab crack when dawn bites?"
Tobyn (nodding): "It will, if we pour wrong. We keep it warm with cloth and screens. We do not pour when the boards wear frost at dawn. If frost kisses after, we cover thick and wake it with warm water at first light."
A boy holds a strip of burlap like a banner.
Joric (lifting the cloth): "Who names the one to wet the burlap and when?"
Tobyn (pinning a rota under the rules): "Leaf traps—Tamsin. Burlap—Joric. Two‑person sign. No man pours alone."
Ressa steps in with a slate under her arm, boots crisp, eyes counting—grades, hands, tools. She crouches at the trench's lip, checks the shoring wedges with a thumbnail.
Ressa (without looking up): "Shore at one cubit and deeper. If I see face lines in wet clay, we pull men out and shore now."
Ryan watches Tobyn measure the shallow cistern base, then chalk a row of small molds on planks—paver blocks to test wheel-cut.
Tobyn (to the pair at the box): "Fill to the lip. Lift smooth. Read the shape."
The mix rises. The dome bows. Holds. Does not spill.
Dago Flint (grinning): "It bows like a mule that knows your hand."
Tobyn (flat): "Good. Lay thin layers. Tamp till water gleams, then dulls. If water stands free on top, you've drowned it."
Joric wets the burlap in a tub. Steam ghosts up.
Brinna "Buckets" Hale slides in from Rope‑Walk Lane, arms strong, eyes cut to the cloth.
Brinna (wringing, sharp): "If the cloth drinks dry, the slab dies. I'll keep it fed."
Tobyn nods. He spreads the first layer of the base. Tampers work in rhythm. A row of paver molds drinks the mix, lips wiped clean.
Ryan's breath shows. He rubs his thumb along the slump box's edge and feels the wood's chill.
(This is right. Bones in the mud. No more ruts that eat wheels. No more burst pits in spring.)
He stays quiet. Tobyn owns the morning.
12:00 p.m. - At Weights and Wages Board, Dawnspire.
The board stands like a door in a wall of snow light. Chalk lines cut rows for names, weights, coin, and rules. Ressa pins a new sheet high, where everyone must look up.
Ressa (tapping each line): "No clay in sand. Sand must squeak in the fist."
She grabs a handful from Dago's graded pile, squeezes. It squeaks, dry and honest.
Ressa (next line): "Wash gravel till the water clears."
She dumps a basket through a sieve into a tub. The first wash runs brown. The second runs cloudy. The third shows the bottom.
Ressa (eyes on the crowd): "Slump must bow, not spill."
She lifts the box with a young pair. The dome bends slow. She nods.
Ressa (pinning the last rule): "Damp burlap on any pour, no pour on frost."
She draws two marks beside it.
Ressa (firm): "Two‑person sign on the water pail and the cement sack. We write it, we weigh it. No lies in the bucket."
Coins ring on the lower shelf. Aidan's clerk marks the ledger, lips moving, fingers fast. Women count their take twice, then tuck it deep. No dues. No "press hand" grabbing wrists.
A rough hand slides a warm loaf across a plank.
Bread Seller (jerking his thumb toward the lane): "Your flat stones… carts don't sink at the corner now. Wheels roll. I sell more. I bring you two loaves. One for the slab."
Brinna takes a piece. She tears it in half, hands it to a lad by the new tap. The tap shows a neat spout over a stone—one of Tobyn's collars—WASH carved in big letters.
Old Ilya Moss, beard like moss and ash, stands at the tap with a jar and a stick. He clocks the boy's dirty palms, narrows his eyes.
Ilya Moss (rapping the stick on the stone): "Soap first, then bread."
The boy flinches, grins sheepish, scrubs with a BENCH jar from a shelf. Suds slide into the gutter. The gutter takes it away without pooling at feet. A mother laughs like a man warming his hands at a forge.
Pairs move between the screens and the forms. Sieves lift and drop. The new tools find hands: slump box, tampers, watering cans with rose heads that throw rain soft as breath. Tobyn walks the line and trades grips, not speeches.
Tobyn (pressing a tamper into a man's palms): "Straight arms. Let the head do the work. Don't peck. Sink it and let it gleam."
Ressa starts a tally on another board.
Ressa (writing): "Hundred Hands — concrete crew."
She lists names. Brinna. Dago. Tamsin. Joric. Ten more from Rope‑Walk Lane. Twelve from the quay. Eight from the dye works. Others sign with marks and look at their fingers like the marks are feathers.
A boy tries to cut a notch through a fresh rib on a low wall for a pipe.
Ressa catches his wrist mid-swing.
Ressa (cold): "No cut without mark. Service runs are drawn first."
She points to brass plates at eye height on a post: RUN stamped deep, arrows showing where invisible paths go. Painted nail heads across ribs wink red like berry eyes.
Ressa (releasing his wrist): "You cut a rib without a plate, you sit two days. No coin. You watch others work. Then you learn."
He swallows and nods. The saw lowers, then lifts to the plate line.
Ryan leans against a post, shoulders eased for the first time since the square ran red. He hears the water under the boards and the soft slap of wet burlap.
(Home wore wood. Frame and skin. Good bones. It went up fast. It breathed and creaked and leaked heat. Fire took whole streets back there, once, when sparks ran the roofs.
Max's place in Germany? Walls of stone and cement. Thick. Quiet winters. Heavy as a promise. Slow to build. Hard to change. They did not burn. Max laughed at my house when the wind sang through it. He liked his walls tight and cold-proof. He paid for that once and never again.)
He shakes the thought off and looks at the board again. Wages show neat. Rules stand plain. Faces are less thin.
Dago dumps a basket of round river gravel into the wash.
Dago Flint (low to Brinna): "Stones that roll build lies. Give me a bite in the mix and it'll sit like it means it."
Brinna (tilting her head toward the burlap): "Keep it wet and it will forget the frost."
Ryan smiles into his collar.
(They don't need me to talk. They need me to give the right rules when they bring the wrong problems.)
05:40 p.m. - At Bench Room, Silverwyn Riverbank, Dawnspire.
The wheel turns steady in the dusk. The alternator hum stays small but sure. The adapter brick is warm, the laptop's tiny eye steady green. Copper wire sings different when the bearings are right, Ryan listens to it like a clock.
Tobyn comes in without snow. He shakes his vest once and lays a thin board on the bench—pencil lines like cuts on a butcher's block.
Tobyn (setting the board): "Builder's list. Crew questions first. My hands, then yours."
Ryan pulls chalk to the slate.
Tobyn (counting on his fingers): "The river gravel is round—mix slumps too much. Do we crush brick for sharp?"
Ryan (marking a little basket on the slate): "If gravel rolls like eggs, blend one basket of crushed brick for bite."
Tobyn (next): "Clay fines make the water cloudy—who rejects which sack?"
Ryan (drawing a fist): "Squeeze test. Sand that turns slick in the fist is bad—reject it. Tag vendor sacks with Ressa's stamp. If a load fails twice, we return his ass and his coin stays in our purse."
Tobyn (flat): "Night frost kissed the form—do we pull the pour or blanket it thicker?"
Ryan (pointing at the burlap roll): "No pour below frost. If poured and frost threatens, double burlap, wind‑screen, hot water sprinkle at dawn. If ice shows, break it and scrap the top finger."
Brinna slips in with steam on her sleeves.
Brinna (planting her hands on the bench): "I can fetch hot from the dye works at dawn. We can keep the cloth warm on the walk."
Ryan (thumb up): "Do it. We pay the boy who carries the cans twice on frost mornings."
Tobyn (grim): "A novice cut a service run through a rib—how do we stop fools with saws?"
Ryan pulls a brass plate from a bin and thunks it on the bench.
Ryan (holding the plate): "Brass 'RUN' plates at eye height. Ribs marked with painted nail heads. Anyone cutting a rib sits two days. No coin. They scrub tools and watch a wall rise without them."
Ressa appears in the doorway, ledger under her arm, hearing the last line. She draws a short check in the margin and circles it.
Ressa (dry): "I like that one."
Tobyn (eyes on his board): "For shops at three floors—can we use concrete under posts, or trust brick and lime?"
Ryan chalks a small stack, marks a shaded pad under it.
Ryan (measured): "Concrete for footings and slabs only. Walls stay masonry, floors stay timber. Short spans. Ledger shoes pinned with iron. No heroics over air."
Tobyn breathes out slow. He taps the board like he taps a chisel before a cut.
Tobyn (quiet): "Good. We can build by those."
Ryan steps back from the bench and points at the slab sample on the floor—two little pours side by side under cloth. He lifts a corner. The surface shows tight, a dull sheen, no bleed water.
Ryan (light): "Bucket twin?"
Brinna lifts a pail and lets a thin stream fall on the twin sample they kept in water. The surface takes the drop and shows no pock. Dago raps it with a knuckle. It answers firm.
Dago Flint (satisfied): "It sits like it means it."
A runner slaps the doorjamb and grins.
Runner (breathless): "First paver demoulds clean. The bread man swore. He wants a row."
Tobyn does not smile, but his jaw eases.
Tobyn (to the runner): "Tell him we lay them when the burlap dries slow, not fast. He can swear again then."
Wind bites at the shutters. Brinna looks at the sky and steps to the burlap stack, already pulling extra rolls.
Brinna (checking her chalk on a small slate): "Late frost breath. I'll double cloth and hang screens. Dago, bring two barrels to block the wind at the corner."
Dago nods and is gone before the wind can answer.
Ryan reaches for a scrap of thin oak and scratches five lines in his cramped block print, then reads them to the room.
Ryan (tapping each word): "Mix: 1 sack cement, 2 baskets sand, 3 baskets gravel—add 1 basket crushed brick if gravel is too round. Water to slump—slow bend, not spill. Wash aggregates till water runs clear. Place thin, tamp till gleam then dull. Cure under damp burlap three to seven days. No pour when boards wear frost."
Tobyn lifts the scrap.
Tobyn (folding it into his vest): "I pin it over the board. I'll add: Two‑person sign. No man pours alone."
Ressa flips her ledger closed and rests it on the bench.
Ressa (level): "Weights and wages stay honest tomorrow. 'Hundred Hands' list grows. We train in pairs, not mobs."
Ryan rolls his shoulders. The world outside still reeks of ash, but the bench room hums warm.
Ryan (quiet): "Concrete is just our cement with stones to give it ribs. We lay it thin, tamp it honest, keep it wet, and we do not pour when the bowl of night is hard."
Tobyn's mouth twitches at the corner. He heads for the door.
Tobyn (over his shoulder): "Hold the water. Slump bows slow—that's the shape we trust. If it flops, add sand and stone."
Brinna carries cloth like a queen carries a train. Dago hoists a barrel. Ressa pins a brass RUN plate at eye height before she goes.
Ryan stays a moment longer, palm on the warm brick of the adapter, then tucks his hands under his arms.
(Phase Two stands. Bones in the mud. Clean water where kids wash. No graves for hurry. No lies in the bucket.)
He kills the lamp and lets the hum keep the dark small.