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The anvil's three lines became their opposite. He set the ring with a compass and half a prayer.
Ludo lit the small lamp and set the block under a lens he had cobbled from a broken glass, the better to see where steel wished to be steel and where it would allow art to sit on its lap. Orna held the die steady with a smith's vice and a grip that could argue with earthquakes. Gael took gravers and tiny chisels, and the room changed as the first chip lifted and fell like a sliver of moonlight.
John watched the way good work makes time move differently. The ring cut clean. The whiskers took shape, easy to read at a glance but not too busy at a thumb's width. The spark required patience; a spark is a simple thing in the sky and complicated when you ask steel to describe it.
