By afternoon, Tamsin had turned their underground prize into a machine that looked as though it ought to make soup.
“It doesn’t make soup,” she said before Felix could ask.
A narrow copper pot stood above a shallow heating tray. Two pipes connected it to a wooden pump. The salvaged regulator sat between them, polished only where Tamsin needed to see its markings.
“It drives the pump until the upper tank fills. Then it stops. Same pressure control as your kettle. Different load.”
“And then we get paid?”
“If we sell it.”
Felix considered this unreasonable additional requirement.
They had enough metal for one demonstration apparatus. They didn’t have enough money for the timber, replacement fittings, or labor that the bridge still needed. A repaired return would prevent the next discharge from chewing through stone. It would not grow a bridge over the gap.
Lyra laid their remaining coins beside the workshop lamp.
“We can buy materials or keep eating. I recommend earning money before that becomes a debate.”
Pell recommended charging admission to watch Jian disagree with Felix. Nobody could explain why this was a bad business model, but they declined it anyway.
Tamsin arranged passage down to the district market. Everything traveled slowly. Felix approved of the pace until the apparatus needed lifting, when he discovered that supervision involved a humiliating number of warnings to keep his hands off it.
His chest still hurt. He kept them off.
The bridge cable had survived where the old maintenance cradle had not. A district hauling crew supplied a replacement basket, inspected the attachments with Jian, and charged by the crossing. One passenger at a time, no arguments about apparent lightness.
Barnaby argued anyway.
“I am largely hollow.”
“So’s a barrel,” the winchman said. “Still costs.”
Felix paid for the owl before a tariff inquiry delayed them until winter. On the academy side, they carried their gear down the service stair in separate loads. The fare hurt less than the view of the broken span overhead.
Tamsin looked at it once and kept walking.
Below the stair, somebody had already begun clearing the storm mud with an ordinary shovel. Progress appeared to be happening without a heroic title attached.
The market occupied a broad stone terrace beneath the academy’s western islands. Yesterday’s storm had stripped two awnings and left a whole tree against the wall behind the grain stalls. People were selling what they had managed to keep dry.
A fishmonger had written DEFINITELY FRESH on a board.
Felix decided not to ask what had inspired the emphasis.
Tamsin rented half a covered stall from a potter. Lyra negotiated the price down by agreeing to demonstrate beside the potter’s stock rather than behind it.
“Association with reliable craft,” the potter explained.
“You mean people will see your bowls,” Felix said.
“You understand commerce.”
Jian carried the tank into position. Barnaby landed above the display and inspected the handwritten sign.
TEN MINUTES BACK. ASK FOR A DEMONSTRATION.
“From whom?” he asked.
“Life,” Felix said.
“That is not a recognized issuing authority.”
Their first customer was an old woman who wanted ten minutes returned from a visit to her brother.
Felix rewrote the sign.
Tamsin filled the lower tank and checked the return hose. Lyra placed three empty jugs beside the upper outlet. Jian tested the warming tray with his insulated needle. Felix watched pressure readings, counting each slow stroke of the pump.
They had rehearsed it twice in the workshop. They rehearsed it once more before asking anybody for money.
The piston rose. Water climbed. When the upper float reached its mark, the regulator closed the inlet.
The pump stopped.
Nothing rattled off the stall. No valuable bowl exploded.
The potter looked almost disappointed.
For the public demonstration, Felix selected a blue pot from their neighbor’s display.
“Something attractive,” he told Lyra. “People like attractive.”
“You should hire somebody, then.”
He held the pot beneath the outlet and turned the tap.
A clear stream struck the bottom, spread beautifully across the glaze, and came through three drainage holes straight onto his trousers.
Felix turned the tap off.
The pump resumed its patient work refilling the tank.
The potter watched water drip from Felix’s knees.
“Herb pot,” he said.
“Yes. I’ve independently confirmed that.”
A small boy in the crowd pointed. “It waters underneath.”
“A premium feature,” Felix said.
Lyra took the pot away and replaced it with one of their plain jugs. She was laughing openly now, which seemed a poor reward for scientific honesty.
He paid for the wet display cloth. The potter sold two herb pots before the next demonstration.
“There,” Tamsin said. “Useful.”
An apron creased with flour appeared at the front of the gathering. Its owner was a broad man carrying a basket of steamed buns.
“How much heat?” he asked.
Tamsin showed him the tray.
“Could take waste heat from a cookstove. Needs a little qi to settle the first cycle. After that, fuel and water. Nobody gets a machine that lives on compliments.”
“I’ve employed apprentices who tried.”
“Could it fill a cistern?” another man asked.
“Depends on height and volume.”
“My roof tank.”
“How high?”
He pointed toward the third terrace.
Jian looked at the narrow pipe. “No.”
Felix turned. “We haven’t measured it.”
“The safe pressure limit is marked here. Even the shortest route exceeds it.”
“With a reinforced chamber?”
“Then we’re discussing another machine.”
The man shrugged and went away.
For a moment Felix watched the money walking with him.
Then he checked the limit against the deck. Jian was right.
“Put that in the sales pitch,” Felix told Lyra. “We know when to say no.”
“An unusual luxury service,” she said.
They sold their first inspection to the bun seller. His name was Dorr. He had a water tank above his steaming counter, low enough for the apparatus to fill without straining.
He gave Tamsin two silver to visit that evening. Installation would cost more, after an actual measurement.
Before accepting Dorr’s deposit, Tamsin made him operate the manual cutoff himself. He had broad fingers and a suspicious expression.
“Clockwise,” she said.
The steam inlet closed. The pump finished its stroke and rested.
“If the float sticks?” he asked.
“Same handle. Then call me.”
“If you’re asleep?”
“Leave it off until morning. Your old hand pump still works.”
He tried the handle again, nodded, and counted out the silver. Felix had expected a customer to prefer claims about never failing. Dorr seemed considerably happier knowing what he could do when something stopped.
Lyra wrote the terms on both copies. She made the deposit refundable if Tamsin found the job unsuitable.
Felix liked the coins more before that clause.
“And if we took his money for something we couldn’t build?” she asked.
“I’d spend it nervously.”
“A poor foundation for a business.”
The next demonstration drew twice as many people. Felix stood beside the machine with the pleased exhaustion of someone whose idea had survived contact with a stranger’s questions.
“No constant pumping,” he told them. “No standing there watching a level rise. The apparatus does the dull bit while you do something better.”
“Like what?” asked the potter.
“Sit down. Drink tea. Consider a bun.”
Dorr raised his basket. Sales improved.
An elderly porter waited until Felix had finished. Then she pointed at the upper tank.
“Will it take my turn away?”
“Your turn?”
“At the pump. I carry water for the dyer. Three mornings a week.”
The crowd grew quieter.
Felix looked at her hands. Her knuckles were thick, the fingers bent. He had been imagining somebody grateful not to carry buckets. He had neglected to imagine somebody paid to do it.
“It could,” he said.
The woman nodded once. She appeared to appreciate the plain answer more than his entire speech.
“Doesn’t mean my back enjoys it. Means my landlord enjoys rent.”
Tamsin rested a hand on the apparatus.
“Dorr’s hiring for a different job. We aren’t selling it to your dyer.”
“Today.”
“Today,” Tamsin agreed.
Felix opened his mouth, then closed it. He had no honest promise to put there.
The potter leaned forward.
“Could it fill glazing buckets? Mine are low. My apprentice spends half her morning fetching water. I’d rather she learned glazing.”
A girl behind him looked up from wrapping bowls.
“Would you pay me for glazing?”
“I’d pay you the same.”
“Then I support progress.”
She went back to work.
The porter snorted, but not unkindly. “There’s your second sign. Ask your apprentice first.”
Felix fetched the chalk.
He could hear Lyra trying not to laugh behind him.
“You may as well,” he said.
“I was preserving your dignity.”
“It needs more than preservation. It needs a qualified repairer.”
They did not solve the future of paid work between a pottery stall and a bun basket. They booked an inspection with the potter, and Felix asked the porter which jobs were ruining people fastest.
She gave him a list with startling speed.
Barnaby recorded it, then announced that his own uninterrupted maintenance period belonged on it.
“You don’t have a landlord,” Felix said.
“I live with you.”
They stopped for tea after the fifth demonstration. The machine continued filling the upper tank whenever customers drew water from the tap. Tamsin checked it at agreed intervals rather than standing over it.
Felix sat on an overturned crate, ate a warm bun, and watched an ordinary useful thing keep working.
For several minutes, nobody needed anything from him.
He enjoyed every one.
He split his second bun with Lyra. She accepted the larger half without comment. Tamsin leaned against a post, eyes closed, while Jian watched the sky. Even Barnaby let a silence remain comfortable.
A girl in an academy infirmary apron hurried past carrying a basket of folded cloth. She stopped when she saw the outlet.
“May I fill this?”
Tamsin checked the girl’s narrow water flask. “Yes. Drinking supply, clean tank.”
The girl thanked her and waited while the flask filled. A small blue badge at her collar blinked once.
Felix’s deck warmed against his hip.
He set his tea down.
Restoration connection recognized.
Available reserve: nineteen measures.
He stared at the number.
There had been three measures when he left home. His injured channels couldn’t safely use even those for anything strenuous. Nineteen did not mean he was healed.
It did mean somebody had found sixteen measures while he was eating a bun.
“Tamsin? Did you change the intake?”
“No.”
He checked the pump. Its heating tray remained steady. The ambient circuit showed the same slow trickle it had shown that morning.
A blue line flashed beneath another reading.
Restoration bonus: active connection.
Two short pulses. One long.
Felix stood too quickly. His chest caught, and he sat back down.
“Problem?” Jian asked.
“I don’t know.”
The infirmary girl fastened her flask to her belt. From somewhere beyond the grain stalls, a bell gave three sharp notes.
Her face changed.
She snatched up her basket and ran.
The blue badge flashed again.
Felix’s reserve climbed another fraction.
He almost followed her. Jian caught the back of his coat without yanking it.
“Walking,” he said.
Felix made himself breathe. He checked the time, the bonus line, and the slow ambient reading. He saved all three.
“Barnaby. That bell. What does it mean?”
“Infirmary assistance. Urgent, not general evacuation.”
The owl had already turned toward it.
Lyra looked from the deck to the passage the girl had taken.
“You’re thinking something.”
“I’m thinking I don’t know enough to think it yet.”
He hated the answer. It was still the right one.
Tamsin covered the demonstration tray and asked the potter to watch their gear. She kept the deposit coins tied in her sleeve.
They had earned those. Felix found the distinction suddenly important, although he could not yet have explained why.
They followed the bell at a walking pace.
Behind them, the upper tank filled to its mark, and the pump stopped exactly as it should.