The stock bin by the central bay held forty fittings, and Ferra dug past the polished ones to the bottom. She came up with a dull hinge collar, the kind any village smith beat out between breakfast and a nap.
"That?" Kerris laughed from his furnace, fourteen Shards wheeling lazily around his forearms, "you pick the ugliest thing in my house?"
"I pick the one somebody actually uses."
She tossed the collar once, caught it, and let the plain weight of it settle into her palm.
'Pinned twice, worn on the inside edge, and nobody ever bothered to thank whoever made it.'
"Copy it, then," he drawled, spreading his arms toward the crowded gallery, "and we'll see whose work this bay remembers."
Hajin slouched against a pillar by the door, two dazed guards sitting at his feet like scolded dogs, "Can I bet on this?"
"No betting," Ferra snapped without turning around.
"Not even a snack bet?"
"Sit on your guards, you lump."
