I stroll into the Silaraon Glass Works studio nearly two hours after sunrise, still yawning from the boisterous party the night before. If I still worked here, Ember would have my hide, but since I’m no longer an employee, I’m willing to risk her wrath. Besides, she doesn’t seem as ominous as she used to, not after dealing with Scalpel. Even the memory of that witch makes me shudder.

After I opened my big mouth last night and announced that I’ve earned the right to be called a master, everyone’s counting on a display of mana-imbuing from me today. I rub the rest of the crusted-over sleep from my eyes, annoyed that I’m not still in bed. If I hadn’t promised to give everyone a demonstration in the morning, a promise that I now regret thanks to how little sleep I got, Ember was about ready to send for a [Runner]. She would have paid to have some poor kid fetch a pile of glass from the studio and make me show off right then and there in the Dancing Duck.

Avelina had pulled a little glass pendant from her pocket and offered to melt it down so I could remake it. Flames leapt to her fingertips, and she only doused the fire when the proprietor sternly warned her that she’d have to pay for any damages caused by excessive mana use. She glowered at him, but complied, to my great relief.

And now, she’s the first one to greet me when I finally stumble through the studio door, as though she claimed sentry duty and was waiting impatiently to take out her frustration on me for stalling. “Looks like your year abroad hasn’t improved your punctuality,” Ava says in greeting, her arms crossed and her hair disheveled. She still looks grumpy from getting shut down last night, and I wonder how long she’ll hold the grudge.

“My time away has done wonders for my dashing good looks,” I shoot back, winking when she rolls her eyes at me.

“Suppose you couldn’t get worse,” Ava mutters, her voice pitched to carry. Not many laugh at her forced joke, but the gleam is back in her eyes, so I’ll take it as a win.

“Master Nuri! You’re back. I always knew you couldn’t stay out of trouble for long.”

I whirl around to look at the owner of the voice, which warbles and cracks with the telltale pitch of a boy on the verge of adulthood, and I smirk at the gangly form of my former assistant. “Ifran, my man! Look at you shooting up like a weed,” I say, pulling him into a big side hug.

He twists away, too grown up now to put up with my embarrassing displays of affection. “Almost as tall as you are, Nuri. Better watch out. I’m gonna catch up. And then I’m gonna pass you as a glass-maker, too.”

“All right, that’s enough sentimentality, you little traitor. Go back to helping grumpy Bijan,” I tease, ruffling his hair despite his howl of protest.

“I’m not that grumpy,” Bijan’s surly voice grumbles. The sour-faced man shambles over to give me a cool nod. “Heard you were back in town. This better be worth my while.”

I shake his hand, greeting him more warmly than he probably deserves. The struggle of running the shop and providing for his extended family over the last few years has worn on him, leaving him more gaunt than before. The lines of his face are deeper, more pronounced, and the edges of his temples are streaked with gray.

Ember strides forward, clapping twice to call for silence. “No time like the present, Nuri. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Where’s the old [Gaffer]?” I ask, scanning the crowd for my friend.

Ifran pipes up, a sad look on his face. “Bad hip. Had to stay back in Peliharaon.”

“Ah. I’ll visit him later, then. I’ve got a few tricks to show him. Tell him I miss him, will you, Ifran? And that I’ll always come back. Don’t forget that part.”

“Time waits for no man,” Ember says, tilting her head toward the nearest workbench and giving me a stern look.

I saunter over to the bench, trying to act cool and collected, but inwardly my nerves are twanging like a too-tight bowstring plucked by a [Hunter]. That doesn’t even make sense, Nuri, I admonish myself. I take in a deep breath, lean against the workbench for support, and cling to the memory that I’m back among friends. If I can imbue in the middle of the poisonous politics of Modilaraon, then surely I can handle the easygoing excitement of Silaraon. I’m among family, after all.

“Ifran, do you still have the little bead-mold I made for you?” I ask, even though I know it’s a long shot that he brought it with him. “Should be about right for this project.”

“Nope. I moved on to free-forming by hand a few months back,” Ifran announces proudly. He grins. “I passed your mold on to my new assistant with instructions to take good care of it.”

“You gave it away?” I say, my voice coming out as a mere squeak of indignation.

“What, was I supposed to cherish the mold forever?” He scoffs, but his eyes spark with mirth. “I’m too good for that now. Besides, she needs it more than I do.”

“But . . . but you’re too young to have an assistant!” I protest, thoroughly confused now. “What’s going on in Peliharaon, anyway? You’re making me regret leaving you unsupervised. No matter; get a gather and show me what you’ve learned. I need a glass marble about as thick as your thumb for my demonstration.”

“You got it, boss,” Ifran says, snickering at my long-suffering sigh.

I squeeze my forehead with my thumb and middle finger, rubbing my temples to stave off the threat of a headache. He knows as well as I do that I hate when people call me boss. Still, he hurries off to the furnace and gets to work, so I can’t fault him too much. Is this how Ember used to feel about me all the time growing up? Lio and I were real terrors.

“It’s my daughter,” Bijan says sheepishly, shuffling over to explain the situation to me in hushed tones. “We needed the coin. I know how it looks, but it’s the same as when Ember hired you for your father’s sake.”

I nod slowly. “No need to apologize for taking care of your own. I trust that your family is doing well?”

“They’re on the road to recovery, thanks to my promotion. Even so, it wasn’t right what you did. You should have asked first,” Bijan replies, back to his dour nature. “I’d have found my own way. Didn’t need your charity.”

“Master Bijan,” I reply with far more formality than the situation calls for, “over the last year I have seen the very worst humanity has to offer. I will give you no apologies for showing kindness when I had the opportunity.”

Thankfully, Ifran returns just then with a few little rods of glass, saving me from further conversation. He grins, snaps his finger, and waves about a tiny jet of flame that shoots out, just like the one Avelina wields. She lifts her chin and smirks at me, as if to claim the superiority of flameworking. I narrow my eyes and give her a flat look, but don’t reply otherwise. My attention is on my former assistant.

He turns the rod in the fire until the glass is glowing, and gently gathers the hot glass into a little glob at the end. Usually, to make a marble quickly, most crafters spin the hot glass inside a tiny mold to smooth out the edges, but Ifran reveals his second surprise of the night. He looks up at me with his big, shining brown eyes, winks, and activates his second Skill.

“[Perfect Sphere],” Ifran intones grandly. The glass compresses before my eyes, taking on a round, pleasing shape without a single bit of turning or manipulating from Ifran. The little marble, which takes him less than a minute, is flawlessly smooth and ready for the kiln.

“Pristine work,” I praise Ifran, although internally I’m wrestling with envy. I wish I could make glass with such easy confidence, instead of the gut-wrenching battle with fear and the smolder of roiling, rebellious mana in my channels. “Fetch me some gloves, if you will? I’m in a delicate spot with my Skills, and I need all my focus for what’s coming next. I’d rather not risk the disruption of trying to activate [Heat Manipulation] in my current condition.”

His eyes bug out, and his adolescent swagger screeches to a halt. “Anything I can do to help you, Boss? You look like you got chewed up and spit out by one of those jaguars from a few years back. No offense.”

“None taken,” I assure him, forcing a chuckle. “You’re not too far off with your guess. My hand melted off in a Rift when I closed an incursion.”

“You might say he single-handedly won the day,” Lio pipes up. A few strained chuckles meet his joke, but most of my gathered coworkers look at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“Shameless as always,” I say, shaking my head at my old friend. I snap my fingers, a habit I must have picked up from Scalpel. “Someone get me the glove before the glass cools. I’m in a rush; if it loses its elasticity, then concepts are harder to impress on the creation.”

“So it’s true, then,” Melina says softly. She sidles up to me with the pair of gloves that I asked for, terrible pity shining in her eyes as she gives me one and tucks the other half of the pair under her arm. “Nuri, you don’t have to keep things to yourself. I thought perhaps you were playing coy last night when you skirted the issue of your Skills, or displaying new-found modesty, but you truly suffered a catastrophic loss, didn’t you? How will that affect your pursuit of the peak?”

I shrug. “Setbacks are part of life. Might take me longer, but it doesn’t change any of my plans. Now, watch carefully.” With only a minimum of awkward finagling, I manage to wiggle my right hand into the glove, grimacing at the sudden disruption to my showmanship. How in the world will I maintain the aura of majestic mystery if a simple glove can trip me up with ease?

I take the glass marble from Ifran, holding it up to the crowd. “See how quickly Ifran made this? Admire the uniformity of the sphere! He’s a talent to watch, my friends.” Every eye is on me, so I puff out my chest and exaggerate the theater of my demonstration. Flourishing my wrist to ensure that the glass marble catches the fierce orange glow from the furnaces, I march in a circle so it reflects the light and they all get a close-up look.

“The key to mana-imbuing is holding an idea firmly in mind, and coaxing the mana to do the work for you,” I say, continuing my lecture. I’ve set up on the far side of my old workbench, which acts as a natural barrier against the press of bodies. Everyone wants to learn more about the process of mana-imbuing, anxious to catapult their own careers forward, and they gather around like eager students listening to a [Sage].

I could get used to this kind of attention.

Unfortunately, the distraction makes it difficult for me to focus on the image I’m holding in my mind. Mana fluctuates around me, agitated and capricious. Closing my eyes to block out all the competing sensations, I cast my memories back to the memory of the successful imbuing projects at Melidandri’s, and embrace the same frame of mind that worked previously. For a long few moments, the mana continues to churn, but by degrees, I rein in my roiling emotions. At last, the mana seems to grow satisfied and placid, settling into the shape of the concept I’m holding onto so carefully.

Like the release of a weary, pent-up sigh, or the trickle of rising water streaming over the top of an overwhelmed dam, the mana flows into the glass marble. Poetry still isn’t my forte, but I paint a picture in mind that fulfills the same role. The ambient mana compresses into the perfect ball of glass, but my glass beads drain of mana to fuel the actual working. All at once, the energy coalesces, and I sag against the bench. The glass marble appears essentially the same, visually, but a sense of latent potential pulses from it with enough potency to reveal itself even to my half-blind mana senses.

I bow to my slack-jawed audience, and present the marble to the watching [Glassworkers]. I’m balancing the glass ball on the mandatory, heat-resistant gloves the assistants all wear. “Melina? Could you speed things up so we can handle it without burning? I’m tired of using the glove.”

She obliges, lifting a hand and channeling mana into her temporal and annealing Skills. The orb of glass vibrates with the intensity of the combination Skills at work, and the smoldering remains of my [Heat Manipulation] gauges the rapid change in temperature as the glass anneals. My suspicion that she’s improved over the last year is instantly proven correct, even though I can’t see the mana flows anymore. I offer her a bow in thanks.

“Ifran, as my one and only protege, I gift this glass core to you,” I croak out. The words come out in a rasp thanks to my parched throat. I lick my dry lips. “Mikko, some water? That took a lot more out of me than I expected.”

“I’ll help you out once, but you’re getting your own water after this,” my brother teases. “After all, you lost a hand, not your legs. You can walk over to the faucet yourself!”

Soon he returns, carrying a fancy, crystalline pitcher that Ember probably had on display and did not intend for shop use. I drain half the pitcher. The cool, fresh water is restorative, and I drink it down in great, greedy gulps. “My thanks, brother. I always knew you would make an excellent hired hand.”

“Nuri! You should be ashamed. That’s a terrible pun,” Lio complains, groaning into his hands as he covers his face.

Sensing that I’m in danger of losing my audience to the two jokesters—my best friends, no less—I take back control of the demonstration and ask Ifran to hold the small glass ball in his hands. He nods at the request, a bit too quickly, and swallows hard before he picks it up. The poor boy cradles it like he's holding a baby chick, and he bites his lip as he studies it, as though waiting for some sort of esoteric reaction.

“Draw on it,” I suggest nonchalantly.

Ifran shrugs and listens to me immediately, without complaint. That’s why I picked him; someone older and wiser would say it doesn’t make sense. My former assistant trusts me, even if he’s picked up a bit of sass since I saw him last.

He giggles nervously as the pseudo-core transfers energy to him. “That tickles! Never thought I could fill my core so fast! Why don’t we all draw in mana like this?”

Furtive murmurs ripple through the crowd, accompanied by a gasp from Melina, whose eyes are glimmering with the faint but telltale sheen of mana. Looks like she unlocked [Manasight] while I was gone.

She turns to me, her cheeks paler than ever, stuttering in her haste to ask the question burning on her mind. “Nuri. Is this—is it real? You can create synthetic mana crystals?”

I yawn loudly and stretch in response. “Hm? Oh, yeah, that’s a fun party trick. Comes in handy for long crafting sessions, since I can refill them and they are way cheaper than real mana crystals. But I don’t see what the fuss is all about. You should see what I can do when I have time to prepare properly.”

“How?” Ember demands, frowning mightily. She stomps forward, squinting at the marble. Ifran startles at her sudden movement, but she pays him no mind. Her eyes are locked in a staring contest with an inanimate object, and knowing her, she will find a way to make the glass blink first.

“The inherent mana-retention property of imbued glass is extraordinarily high, which makes it well suited to creating pseudo-cores, as I call them,” I say, clasping my left wrist in my right hand, my arms behind my back in what I like to think of as a confident, scholarly pose. “I will, of course, teach you all, but I must insist you all sign strict contracts of confidentiality, as well as non-compete statements.”

Avelina scowls at me, her arms crossed. Flames flicker in her eyes. “Forgot your friends while you were off traipsing across Densmore? What’s with the secrecy?”

“I trust you, Ava,” I say, assuring her softy. “I have met far too many people I can’t trust, however. Silaraon—and, by extension—Peliharaon is poised to become a major hub for advanced glassworking if we approach this from the right angle. Prudence demands that we don’t share the details unless we want others to copy us. Right now, I’m the only one who can do what I just showed you, which means that once I teach you, we’ll be sitting on a gold mine, metaphorically speaking. How long until others try to replicate our success? All it takes is one person to get greedy, or even a simple slip of the tongue, and we give away our competitive advantage.”

“You have a point,” Melina says, chiming in and placating her fiery twin. “Harvesting naturally occurring mana crystals is delicate, expensive work, and you can only use them once, although there is some promising research about recharging them with the right setup. If you can reliably and cheaply produce an alternative, something thought to be impossible, I should point out, then you’ll be richer than Lord Garman.”

“Or dead, if the [Miners] guild decides you’re threatening their business,” Ember mutters darkly. “I think you’re right about secrecy, as much as I want to learn your technique.”

I nod at my master gratefully. “I promise to teach the rest of you how to imbue, but we have to be smart about it. Patience, friends. We’re playing the long game, and I intend to win.”