Dorr looked at Tamsin’s measuring rod, then at his water basin.
“Thought you’d forgotten me.”
“You got the message?”
“I got a message. I need water.”
She set her tool bag down and asked him to show the route. The two-silver deposit lay recorded on the job sheet, still attached to a job rather than transformed into somebody’s supper.
He took her behind the stall, ducking under the awning with the tray held level. The source was a little lower than the street side made it appear. She set her rod against the basin, checked the rise and asked him to carry water exactly as he did during trade.
Dorr lifted a full bucket and stopped when a customer called from the front.
“That,” he said over his shoulder. “That’s the bit I want gone.”
Tamsin held the empty measure while he sold two buns. When he returned, she asked where he put the bucket if the basin was already full.
He showed her the narrow space beneath the counter. A spilled line of flour marked the usual path.
She moved the proposed pump position so its outlet wouldn’t force him to carry a dripping bucket over the baking board. It shortened the route, though it left the return bend in need of correction.
Dorr watched her chalk marks.
“Could it go out front? People would see it.”
“They’d also stand in front of your water.”
He considered the customer queue beginning at the awning post.
“Behind, then.”
She wrote the actual arrangement rather than the more attractive one. He put the tray down long enough to inspect the drawing, then asked her to turn it so it matched the stall.
Tamsin did. She could hear Barnaby objecting from another island.
From the source to the working basin, the rise was within what their little pump had demonstrated. Tamsin measured the last section twice, checked the proposed return and found a correction needed beside the stall leg.
Dorr waited with a bun tray against his hip.
“Can it do it?”
“With that bend changed. Here’s the price. Here’s when I can install it. Or I return your deposit.”
He studied the dates.
“Book it. I’m tired of carrying.”
She entered the installation against his existing money. Only after he’d checked it did she mention the meeting at Hana’s yard.
He glanced at her tools again.
“Another invoice?”
“I’m asking you for something without a pipe attached.”
“Unfamiliar service.”
“Support for the charter petition. Not free installation.”
He nodded, less disappointed than she expected.
At the potter’s premises, the conditions were different. The proposed line rose farther and passed close to heat the market apparatus had never had to tolerate. Tamsin would not sell the same pump under the same promise.
The potter led her to the proposed upper shelf, where a warm pipe ran close to the wall. He wanted water there because it kept the wet work away from the finished pieces below.
Tamsin understood the reason. She also measured a rise beyond the little pump’s demonstrated lift. Moving the basin down would interfere with the way he carried green pots to the drying boards.
“Same pump, different stand?” he asked.
She put her drawing beside the shelf and showed him where the safe arrangement would have to change. He listened, disappointed, then shook his head at the cost of redesign.
“Not today.”
She counted the refund into his hand before asking for anything else. He checked it, closed his fingers and looked less guarded when she mentioned the meeting.
The potter heard her out, then asked for the refund rather than a dearer assessment today.
She returned the deposit and marked the job accordingly.
“You could’ve said yes and found the trouble later,” he said.
“You’d have found it too.”
He gave a short laugh and agreed to say what she’d actually tested. No purchase, no inflated endorsement.
By the time Tamsin reached Hana’s court, the day’s washing had stopped coming in. The repaired rack held a last row of sheets. Hana left it alone while setting out mismatched stools.
Dorr arrived smelling of warm dough. The lamp keeper brought her service card. A hauler leaned against the wall, still wearing his heavy crossing gloves. Neighbors came with questions about lessons, repairs and what happened if someone bought the anchor.
There were more people than chairs.
Felix looked encouraged. Tamsin reserved judgment.
Lyra explained the sponsor route and what recognition would require. Not a vote declaring Felix owner of the island. Evidence of useful instruction, responsible support and commitments the academy could examine.
“Early access,” Dorr said at once. “Before the stall opens.”
“Not all early access to whoever pays most,” Hana answered.
“I haven’t offered most.”
“You’d like to arrive first anyway.”
The hauler lifted one gloved hand.
“If an emergency job overruns, who pays for my delayed route? Last storm I had three people telling me their emergency was public. My food wasn’t.”
A neighbor wanted instruction for her older child but not during the hours the girl helped at the shop. Another man said he would sign if it meant repairs whenever needed, without a fee.
Felix leaned forward.
“We can make time for—”
Tamsin put a hand on the job ledger.
“Which time?”
He looked at the growing list.
“We haven’t reached that part.”
“We just did.”
Lyra suggested gathering general support first and settling the detailed obligations after recognition. Tamsin saw the appeal. A long list would look impressive on a registrar’s desk. It would also hide every disagreement now occupying Hana’s court.
She asked for three sheets.
“What you’ve witnessed. What you’re paying for. What you’re committing to provide. They can be different.”
The potter took the first sheet. He described a test that ended in a refund when the equipment didn’t fit his premises. It wasn’t a glowing account of magical success. It was true.
Dorr put his existing installation on the paid-work sheet and offered a modest instructional subscription. He asked exactly which sessions it bought before signing.
Hana offered this space for a limited number of meetings after trade, with nobody moving wet sheets to make room for a speech. She signed a statement about the upper rack’s operation.
The hauler proposed a fixed block of basket time at a reduced rate. Extra use remained extra use. Wind could still close the crossing.
Tamsin wrote that clearly.
A man at the back rubbed his jaw.
“I can’t promise money this month.”
“Then don’t,” she said. “What have you actually seen?”
He had watched a lamp fitting being tested and knew the old route still carried a load. His statement belonged there, not beneath an invented subscription.
The neighbor who wanted unlimited free repairs gave the sheets back.
“Not much reason for me, then.”
“All right,” Tamsin said.
He left. A second hopeful signer followed when the work contributions became specific. Felix watched the empty stools, then looked at the smaller group still arguing over the actual schedule.
Hana asked whether district workers could learn the safe stop without agreeing to future repair purchases.
Lyra checked the draft and added that they could.
Dorr asked whether his subscription could be canceled if his stall failed.
“With notice,” Tamsin said. “No imaginary payments after you’ve stopped trading. We need a way to leave.”
That made the hauler nod more vigorously than any promise to remain friends.
The neighbor seeking lessons for her daughter wanted to know what happened if an instructor failed to arrive. Felix started to say they wouldn’t, then glanced at his bandaged arm.
“We give notice,” he said. “Or return the session payment if we can’t offer another time you can use.”
“And if I can’t come?”
Hana moved the cup away from the draft sheet so Tamsin could write the matching term. They argued about the notice window for several minutes. A shop could have an unexpected rush. A workshop could have one too. Neither side wanted the other’s uncertainty to become an automatic unpaid afternoon.
They settled on a narrow arrangement for the first subscriptions and a review after experience. The woman read it, asked one more question and signed beneath her own name, not her daughter’s.
Then the questions reached the household.
Felix could offer basic safety instruction at named times. No dawn lessons while he was still recovering. Some hours were his, not unclaimed gaps the meeting could fill.
“Midday,” he said, drawing a firm line across the sheet.
Hana looked over it.
“That’s when sensible people eat.”
“Proof of my administrative talent.”
The court laughed. He kept the line.
Lyra needed to pursue her family case and retain control of her original records. Her presence at every repair visit could not be part of the bargain.
Tamsin wrote her own business into the arrangement. Tools remained hers. A place on the petition did not make her Felix’s employee or oblige her to live at Solitude forever. Decisions about Pell were hers, not votes taken by people who found him useful.
Barnaby insisted that communications meant agreed work, maintenance intervals and the right to decline flights outside his capacity.
The hauler gave him a long look.
“You charging weather too?”
“Weather charges me first.”
They agreed on a message window rather than permanent availability.
Jian’s name came up. Felix started to answer, stopped and said they’d ask him. Whatever he offered required his own agreement.
Tamsin made room for that blank rather than inventing a commitment because a disciplined cultivator would look reassuring on the page.
The schedule acquired gaps. Work. Instruction. A meeting period. Time when the bench was not promised to anybody else. Nobody could claim every saved hour merely because a machine had saved it.
Hana turned the repaired rack once, collected a dry sheet and sat back down. The device did not need to become evidence again. It was doing the job she’d paid for while she helped decide what else she wanted.
Tamsin read every contribution back to its owner.
The long list of favorable names had become a shorter set of people who knew what their signatures meant. It was less impressive at a glance. She trusted it more.
Lyra gathered the statements and drafted the petition. They still needed academy recognition. Nothing said the auction must wait just because the court had found something it could agree on.
The hauler checked the time before offering the household its next crossing slot.
“Normal rate tonight,” he said.
“We haven’t bought the block yet,” Tamsin agreed.
He grinned. “Good. You were listening.”
Dorr opened his cloth bundle after the last signature. A few unsold buns remained. He offered them round, warning that they were yesterday’s recipe and today’s age.
Felix accepted one.
Tamsin took half and passed the other half to Hana, who was still clearing a space among the sheets. The meeting had run longer than intended. Nobody offered to make that a permanent hour on the schedule. They ate while the last ink dried, then put the borrowed stools back where they belonged.
They returned to Solitude separately. Felix carried the proposed teaching schedule folded into his coat, where it could trouble him without getting wet.
At the workshop, Tamsin checked the tools she’d used at Dorr’s against the tool roll. All present. Both inspections completed. One installation reserved, one deposit refunded. A meeting finished without spending the same coin twice.
Pell came from the kitchen with a piece of bread.
“What are you teaching?” he asked Felix.
“Intake, storage, output, return. How to read the—”
“No,” Pell said. “How do I stop the pump?”
Felix pointed to the practice model and began explaining how changing pressure affected the indicator. He reached the third distinction before Pell’s expression went blank.
Tamsin closed the tool roll.
“Ask him again,” she told her son.
Pell swallowed his bread.
“How do I stop it?”
Felix looked at the petition beside the model, then at the boy waiting for an answer.