The brass fittings cost seven standards.

  Old Ketter's salvage yard held thirty-odd pieces of various sizes, bent and blackened and rejected from legitimate commerce. Eiran negotiated the price down from eight, loaded the lot into his canvas bag, and moved on.

  The springs required labor instead of coin. Three days working a nephew of Ketter's at the wire-drawing bench, off-hours, in exchange for twenty coils of precision wire he couldn't have afforded to purchase. He didn't volunteer where the wire was going. The nephew didn't ask.

  ---

  The precision glass came from Widow Marren's shop.

  She sold secondhand goods near the market square: furniture, clothing, household items accumulated from estates and evictions and the ordinary churn of people buying new things and discarding old ones. Most of what she carried was unremarkable. But occasionally, among the chipped plates and tarnished candlesticks, she acquired something interesting.

  The lens had belonged to a surveyor. Marren didn't know which one, since the estate had been sold off piecemeal and the provenance was lost. But the glass itself was quality work: a convex lens in a brass housing, cracked along one edge where something had struck it, but otherwise intact.

  "Ornamental, mostly," Marren said, turning it in her gnarled hands. "The crack ruins it for serious use. I was thinking twelve standards, for someone who wanted it for decoration."

  Twelve standards for a lens that would cost two royals new, assuming you could find a glassmaker willing to grind it. The crack was a problem, but Eiran had already worked out a solution: he would cut the lens along the fracture line, creating a smaller but flawless piece that would serve his purposes.

  "Eight," he said. "The crack makes it fragile. One wrong touch and it shatters."

  "Ten."

  "Nine, and I'll look at that clock you showed me last time. The one that doesn't keep time."

  Marren's eyes narrowed. She was shrewd, always had been. You didn't survive forty years in the secondhand trade without learning to see value others missed. But she was also practical.

  "The clock won't work. I've had three men look at it."

  "I'd like to try."

  "And if you fix it?"

  "Then you have a working clock to sell. But you don't owe me anything for the attempt."

  She considered. Then, slowly, she nodded.

  Nine standards for the lens. Eiran paid and added the glass to his growing collection of components, wrapped carefully in cloth to protect it during the walk home. The clock she brought out was a mantel piece, decorative and non-functional, its mechanism gummed with years of neglect.

  He cleaned it in twenty minutes, adjusted the escapement, and had it ticking before he left. Marren watched with an expression that was equal parts surprise and reassessment.

  "You're better than you let on."

  "I'm exactly as good as I let on." Eiran shrugged into his coat. "I just don't have a name worth knowing."

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  ---

  The near-discovery happened on a Thursday.

  Eiran had stayed late at the workshop, as had become his habit, waiting for Havelock's footsteps to recede up the stairs to his quarters above. The candle was burning low, casting uncertain light across the workbench where the device was taking shape.

  It looked like nothing, currently. A scattered arrangement of gears and fittings and the cut lens, not yet assembled into coherent form. Anyone glancing at it would see parts, not product. That was intentional. Eiran kept the components separate until he was ready to test each assembly, reducing the risk of discovery.

  But tonight, he'd been careless.

  The sound of footsteps on the stairs came without warning. Not Havelock's heavy tread, but something lighter, quicker. Pol, probably, coming back for something forgotten.

  Eiran moved fast.

  The components went into the canvas bag. The bag went under the workbench, behind a pile of scrap brass that had accumulated over weeks of legitimate work. The candle he left burning, since snuffing it would only draw attention to its recent use.

  By the time Pol appeared in the doorway, Eiran was seated at the bench, apparently reviewing the next day's commission orders by inadequate light.

  "Eiran? I thought everyone had left."

  "Finishing up some notes." Eiran kept his voice casual. "Havelock wants the Therrington order expedited. You know how he gets about documentation."

  Pol nodded slowly. His eyes swept the workshop in a quick scan that might have been innocent curiosity or might have been something else. They paused, briefly, on the pile of scrap brass.

  "You've been staying late a lot."

  "The work needs doing."

  "Right." Pol stepped further into the room, his expression thoughtful. "It's just that some of the others have noticed. Tommin's been asking questions."

  "Tommin always asks questions."

  "He's wondering if you're planning something. After what happened with the patent, I mean. He thinks maybe you're..." Pol trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

  "Thinks maybe I'm what?"

  "Stealing. Taking components to sell. Building something on the side that belongs to the workshop."

  The accusation, even secondhand, hit harder than it should have. Eiran kept his face neutral.

  "And what do you think?"

  Pol was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I think if you were doing something, you'd have good reasons. But I also think you should be careful. Tommin talks to Havelock more than he lets on."

  "Noted." Eiran gathered the commission papers and stood. "I was just leaving anyway. Walk out together?"

  They left the workshop side by side, and Eiran made sure to lock the door with Pol watching. A small gesture, but visible. Nothing to hide. Nothing unusual.

  The canvas bag remained under the workbench, concealed by shadows and accumulated debris. Eiran would need to find a better hiding place, somewhere outside the workshop entirely, before Tommin's suspicions turned into active investigation.

  ---

  The lie came easier than he'd expected.

  The next morning, when Havelock asked about the late hours, Eiran explained that he'd been refining the calibration procedures for the Therrington commission. A technical improvement, something he'd read about in one of the journals that Havelock kept on his desk.

  "Show me," Havelock said.

  So Eiran showed him. Not the real work, not the device or its underlying principles, but a simplified version, a minor adjustment to the shop's standard calibration routine that genuinely did improve accuracy. Something he'd developed weeks ago and held in reserve for exactly this kind of moment.

  Havelock examined the improvement, tested it on one of the workshop's standard instruments, and nodded approvingly.

  "Good work. We'll incorporate this into our process going forward. Document it properly. I'll want to include it in our next quality report."

  "Of course, sir."

  The words tasted like copper in Eiran's mouth. He was giving Havelock something of value, something that would improve the workshop's reputation and ultimately benefit his master more than himself. Another small contribution added to the pile of small contributions that would never carry his name.

  But it bought him cover. It explained the late hours. It satisfied the questions that Tommin might ask and that Havelock might eventually wonder about.

  The real work continued in secret, moved now to Eiran's room in the Warrens, where the light was worse but the risk of discovery was lower. He worked by candle-stub and moonlight, fingers cramping in the cold, progress measured in fractions of a standard's worth of advancement each night.

  Running tally, end of week: fifty-three standards on hand. Materials invested: approaching four royals total. Entry fee requirement: three royals. Time remaining: three months, perhaps a little more.

  The math was brutal but not impossible.

  Eiran lay in his narrow bed, surrounded by components hidden under floorboards and behind loose plaster, and allowed himself to believe that it might work.

  Might.

  That was the best he could do.