The chalk marks bought them almost a full extra day. The senior stewards were forced into closed meetings to contain the embarrassment of their names appearing on public walls beside accusations of preparing an unregulated seizure. The declaration was delayed. The workshop used the hours.
New faces arrived with the delay. A pair of glasswrights from the quiet southern residential districts came first—husband and wife, both mid-career, both carrying crates of family panes that had survived the breaking but no longer felt safe. They did not ask to join the work. They asked for teaching.
“We can keep our own benches,” the woman said. “But we need to know how to tell when a sphere is about to be refused so we stop promising clients results we cannot deliver. Teach us the signs. We will carry
