Curtis entered with two men carrying lanterns.
He looked at Isaiah and smiled without warmth.
“Mrs. Whitcomb, you should not have admitted him.”
Lenora stepped between them.
“I sent for him.”
“That was unwise.”
Curtis pointed at Isaiah.
“Search him.”
The two men moved forward.
Isaiah raised his hands but did not step back.
“What am I accused of taking?”
Curtis looked at Lenora.
“A brass weight.”
Isaiah nodded toward the table.
“It is there.”
Curtis’s eyes flicked to the object.
He had expected a search, not an answer.
Lenora picked it up.
“I found it earlier.”
Curtis frowned.
“You told me it was missing.”
“I was mistaken.”
“People do not mistake a theft.”
“Then perhaps someone wanted me to think it was stolen.”
Curtis’s face reddened.
Isaiah understood that Lenora had changed sides only far enough to protect herself.
He also understood that her words had bought him seconds.
He used them.
“Mr. Price is still here,” Isaiah said.
Curtis turned sharply.
“What does that have to do with you?”
“He asked who designed the machine.”
Curtis stepped closer.
“You have no business speaking about that machine.”
“Then why did you bring it onto this property?”
One of the lantern bearers glanced at the other.
Curtis noticed.
“Take him downstairs.”
Lenora spoke before the men could move.
“My husband has not ordered that.”
Curtis faced her.
“Your husband will thank me.”
“Then let him say so.”
For a moment nobody moved.
A new voice came from the hallway.
“I would prefer to hear what is happening before I thank anyone.”
Nathaniel Price stood outside the room.
He had removed his coat but still wore his boots.
Curtis’s expression changed at once.
“This is a household matter.”
Price looked at Isaiah.
“Is it?”
Isaiah held his gaze.
“It concerns the machine you came to buy.”
Curtis lunged toward him.
Price raised his voice.
“Stop.”
The command surprised everyone.
Price looked at Curtis.
“If you touch him, I leave tonight.”
Silas Whitcomb appeared behind Price, breathing heavily from the stairs.
“What is this disturbance?”
Lenora turned toward her husband.
“Curtis is accusing Isaiah of theft.”
Silas glanced at the weight in her hand.
“Has anything been stolen?”
“No,” she said.
Silas looked at Curtis.
“Then get out of my wife’s room.”
Curtis bowed stiffly and left.
The lantern bearers followed him.
Price remained in the doorway.
He looked at Isaiah once more.
“I would like to speak with the man who knows the machine’s maker.”
Silas’s expression hardened.
“That man works for me.”
Price answered quietly.
“That is not an answer to my request.”
Chapter Nine: The Woman at the Kiln
Isaiah waited until the estate lamps were extinguished before he crossed the pasture.
He did not take the direct path to the kiln.
Curtis had posted a man near the orchard, so Isaiah followed a ditch that ran behind the cattle pens.
The moon was hidden by clouds.
He moved by remembering the ground rather than seeing it.
A loose stone near the fence warned him that he had reached the old brickworks.
The kiln stood beyond a patch of thorn bushes,
its chimney black against the sky.
One lantern burned inside.
Isaiah crouched behind a stack of broken bricks and listened.
A woman was speaking.
“You cannot make it turn without the smaller wheel.”
Curtis answered from inside.
“Then show me how to make the smaller wheel.”
“I have told you.”
“You have told me nothing useful.”
“Because you do not understand what you stole.”
A sharp crack sounded.
Isaiah flinched but heard no cry.
Curtis had struck a table or a door.
“I have until noon,” Curtis said.
“Then you have less time than you think.”
“You will not threaten me.”
“I am telling you that a machine assembled incorrectly will destroy itself.”
Curtis paced across the floor.
Isaiah heard his boots pass close to the wall.
“Your husband should have sold it when he had the chance.”
“My husband offered to license it.”
“Mr. Whitcomb wanted ownership.”
“And you wanted his favor.”
Curtis stopped walking.
“You should be grateful I kept you alive.”
Ada Fenwick laughed once.
The sound was dry and exhausted.
“You have mistaken survival for gratitude.”
Isaiah pressed his ear toward a crack in the bricks.
He could see a small workbench and a wheel mounted on a frame.
Ada sat beside it with one wrist tied to a chair.
Her face was pale, but her eyes followed every movement Curtis made.
Curtis held a wooden block in one hand.
He placed it against the wheel and turned a crank.
The wheel caught, jerked, and stopped.
He cursed.
Ada looked away.
“You have cut the groove backward.”
Curtis threw the block across the room.
Isaiah ducked as it struck the wall near him.
A second man entered carrying a covered tray.
Curtis ordered him to leave the food and take the broken pieces outside.
Isaiah recognized the man’s voice as Abel’s.
Abel had been the night watchman for years.
He had a wife and two daughters in the quarters behind the stable.
Isaiah knew he would not risk his family for a stranger without reason.
When Abel emerged with the broken pieces, Isaiah stepped from the shadows.
Abel froze.
“Go back,” he whispered.
“Is she hurt?”
“Not as badly as she might be.”
“Does Curtis stay all night?”
“He leaves before dawn.”
“Where is the key?”
Abel looked at the kiln door.
“On his belt.”
Isaiah reached for the broken block.
Abel pulled it away.
“Do not take anything.”
“I need to show Price.”
Abel stared at him.
“The buyer?”
“He knows Thomas.”
Abel’s shoulders dropped.
“Then maybe there is a way.”
“Will you help me?”
Abel looked toward the stable, invisible beyond the ridge.
“If I do, my daughters will pay for it.”
Isaiah did not argue.
“I will not ask you to choose without knowing what it costs.”
Abel swallowed.
“Curtis says there will be a fire here tomorrow night.”
Isaiah felt the cold settle deeper.
“What kind of fire?”
“The kind that leaves no witnesses.”
Chapter Ten: The Choice Esther Made
At dawn Isaiah returned to the sewing room.
Esther was awake with Micah beside her.
She saw the mud on Isaiah’s shoes and sent the other women to fetch more thread.
“Where have you been?”
“At the kiln.”
Esther’s face tightened.
“You promised you would be careful.”
“I was careful.”
“That is what people say when they come back alive.”
Isaiah sat opposite her.
“Curtis plans to burn the kiln after the buyer leaves.”
Esther set down her needle.
“Is someone inside?”
“Ada Fenwick.”
Esther closed her eyes briefly.
“I heard she had gone north with her husband.”
“That is what Curtis wants everyone to believe.”
Isaiah told her about the machine and Price’s ultimatum.
He also told her about the threat to Micah.
Esther listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she pulled a finished coat from beneath the table.
“Mrs. Whitcomb came here before dawn,” she said.
“What did she want?”
“She told me to finish all seven coats by noon.”
“Did she say why?”
“She said six were for samples and one was for a journey.”
Isaiah examined the seventh coat.
It was smaller than the others.
“Who is traveling?”
Esther looked at Micah.
“She measured him yesterday.”
Isaiah stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
Esther caught his wrist.
“Sit down.”
“They are taking him.”
“I know what she threatened.”
“Then why are you calm?”
“Because I decided not to sew the pockets as she ordered.”
Esther turned the coat inside out.
She had stitched the leather strips across the seams instead of along them.
A heavy object placed in the pockets would pull the lining apart.
“Any samples carried in these coats will fall out before they reach the gate,” she said.
Isaiah stared at her work.
“You could be punished for this.”
“I could be punished for anything.”
He looked at Micah, who was tracing a pattern in the dust with one finger.
Esther lowered her voice.
“I am not waiting for you to save us while I sit here making the thing that helps them.”
Isaiah felt a mixture of pride and dread.
“What do you need from me?”
“Tell me where the samples are going.”
“I do not know.”
“Then find out.”
She placed a folded piece of cloth in his hand.
It contained a narrow wooden tooth with a curved edge.
“Gideon brought this before sunrise.”
“Why?”
“He said you would know what it meant.”
Isaiah recognized Thomas’s carved letter on the side.
Beneath it Gideon had added a new mark.
It was a small circle crossed by two lines.
Isaiah had seen that shape on the wheel at the kiln.
He understood that Gideon was sending a warning about the machine’s assembly.
The wrong piece had been made to fit.
If Curtis forced the demonstration, someone standing near the wheel could be hurt.
Chapter Eleven: The Broken Demonstration
At ten o’clock the workshop filled with men wearing clean coats.
Silas had invited two local merchants to witness the demonstration.
Nathaniel Price stood beside the main bench with his arms folded.
Curtis had brought the machine from the kiln before dawn.
It stood on a wooden frame with a large wheel, a cutting arm, and a series of grooved blocks.
Isaiah recognized the pieces he had unloaded from the wagon.
Gideon stood near the back wall, holding a box of tools.
Pritchard watched the machine with obvious unease.
Silas addressed the visitors.
“Gentlemen, this device will cut identical joints in a fraction of the time required by hand.”
Price examined the wheel.
“Who designed the sequence of blocks?”
Silas smiled.
“My workshop.”
“Then your workshop should be able to explain the sequence.”
Curtis stepped forward.
“The operation is simple.”
He inserted a block and began turning the crank.
The wheel moved smoothly for three rotations.
On the fourth, the cutting arm shuddered.
Gideon stepped forward.
“Stop the wheel.”
Curtis ignored him.
The arm jerked again.
Isaiah saw the narrow wooden tooth beginning to split.
“Stop it now,” he shouted.
Curtis turned faster, trying to push through the resistance.
The tooth snapped.
A wooden fragment struck the wall above the visitors’ heads.
Price ducked.
Pritchard grabbed the frame to keep it from overturning.
Isaiah caught Gideon by the shoulder and pulled him away from the cutting arm.
Curtis released the crank.
The wheel spun backward and came to a halt with a loud crack.
Silas stood motionless.
Price straightened his coat.
“Is that the machine you intended to sell me?”
Curtis pointed at Gideon.
“The boy cut the piece incorrectly.”
Gideon stared at him.
“You ordered the groove reversed.”
Curtis raised his hand.
Price stepped between them.
“Do not touch him.”
Silas recovered his voice.
“The mechanism needs adjustment.”
“It needs its inventor,” Price replied.
A murmur spread through the room.
Lenora appeared at the doorway.
Her gray dress was creased, and her hair had come loose.
“Mr. Price,” she said.
Silas turned.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to speak with our guest.”
“Not now.”
“Now.”
The room went quiet.
Lenora looked directly at Price.
“Mrs. Fenwick is being held at the old kiln.”
Silas took a step toward her.
“Lenora.”
She did not look at him.
“She has been there for weeks.”
Curtis moved toward the side door.
Isaiah blocked his path.
Curtis stopped inches away.
“You will regret that,” he whispered.
Isaiah answered without raising his voice.
“I have regretted your presence for years.”
