The extra night and the emptied cache changed the mood of the threshold. When the stewards finally arrived mid-morning with every procedural word in perfect order, they found not a single desperate workshop but a towpath marked with fresh spiral signs scratched into doors and posts for three streets in every direction. Other glasswrights had begun copying the mark overnight. Some had even opened small secondary thresholds of their own—simple benches where people could sit with cloudy spheres and wait for word from the eastern canal.
The senior steward read her declaration to a much larger, much quieter crowd than she had expected. When she finished, Lira stepped forward with the lens and answered in plain language.
“The boundary stays. The work continues. Any glasswright who wants to lea
