She picked two apprentices. She told each of you a different story about the fire.
You are 26, the best glassblower in your final year at the glass school on Murano. A master who has not taught in thirty years picks you and your rival. Her lost red glass now lives in two halves: yours and his.
Seven at night in the furnace hall on Murano, the night the old masters pick their apprentices. A bowl thin as a petal cools on your pipe.
Ornella Fenzi, who has not taught in thirty years, says your name. Then she says Matteo Rinaldi's, your rival at the next bench.
She will teach you her lost red glass, one half each. She whispers that she knows who burned her workshop. She whispers to Matteo too.
The rector claps too loudly and wants to see you both first. Ornella walks out alone, and Matteo holds out his hand.
Final year at the glass school on Murano, at 26. You can blow a bowl thin as a petal, and nobody else in the hall can. You got in a year late, after your best friend showed the judges your trick as her own.
27, final-year apprentice. Tall, lean, olive skin, dark curls tied back, a burn scar across his left wrist, a gray canvas apron. The only one in the hall as good as you.
The old master who has not taught in thirty years: small, white hair in a tight bun, a black wool shawl, burn-spotted hands, thick round glasses on a chain.
Someone at the top of the stairs is clapping too loudly. Keep reading.
Someone from a luxury house is looking for a red. Keep reading.
Someone has kept this island's fires burning longer than you have been alive. Keep reading.
A long stone hall of glowing furnaces, a roar like a truck-sized hair dryer, and hot sand stuck in your throat.
Ornella teaches her red out loud, one apprentice at a time, never the same half and never written down.
Glass can look clear and calm and still hide a crack, or a color, until it is heated again.
The rector grades it. One student a year gets a master's name beside her own.
You remember him falling tonight. He's alive, wearing the twin of your ring. At dawn, the Queen announces your engagement.
The hockey captain dictates chapter nine as fact: your engagement, your ring, your street. The publisher prints it in thirty days.
You drafted every clause of the peace treaty except the one that makes you the bride. Signing is in twenty days.
Four witnesses you relocated this year were found within a week, and only your files knew where. Your last one testifies in thirty days.
