Chương 45: Twenty at a Time

The setting plate had been finished for three days by the time my parents sent the unfinished inserts back to me. Two bread baskets waited beside the rear door when I came downstairs, each covered with a clean cloth. Twenty cooling inserts were packed inside, already sewn into their housings and sorted by size. Father had left a note on top telling me the coats were ready and the inserts were now my problem. Mother had added a second line beneath his reminding me to bring the plate and eat before I came.

Tovan read the note over my shoulder while uncovering the nearest basket.

"You already made the plate?"

"The working version." He looked toward the stairs.

"Up there?"

"For three days." Tovan covered the inserts again and picked up the onions he had brought from storage.

"Your mother seems aware."

"I was waiting until the restaurant could spare me for an afternoon." He gave a quiet sound that could have meant agreement or disbelief, then returned to the preparation table. Breakfast started before I could carry the baskets anywhere else. Mill workers filled the front tables, followed by two wall crews and a family collecting food before lessons. Evelyn arrived at the second bell, tied on her apron, and went through the morning route checks without needing anyone to walk beside her.

A cupboard token caught near packaging. She cleared it. A delivery arrived early, and she put it in the waiting square until Nessa finished with the current customer. When one tray stopped because a cup had been set across its edge, Evelyn removed the cup, turned the wheel by hand, and sent the route moving again. I remained at the stove through all of it. That was still unusual enough that I noticed.

Near the end of breakfast, Nessa came through with her timing notebook and looked at the clock before making one final mark.

"Thirty-one minutes." I lowered the heat beneath the grain.

"What happened for thirty-one minutes?"

"You cooked."

"I have done that before." Tovan passed behind me with the empty egg pan.

"Without leaving." I looked toward Evelyn. She was checking a cupboard collection against its tag while a courier waited beside the counter. Nothing around her required my attention. Thirty-one minutes was longer than the eleven Nessa had circled before the support position was filled. The tray routes had removed much of the walking. Evelyn was handling the rest of the work that still needed a person. The baskets sat against the rear wall where she had moved them out of everyone's way. Nessa closed the notebook.

"You're going after lunch."

"I planned to."

"The plate has been upstairs since first-day."

"I have been busy."

"So have your parents." Tovan had already started measuring the evening grain. He glanced toward me as he tipped the first cup into the pot.

"Stock is done too."

"The cooling cabinet still has that sound near the lower hinge." Evelyn passed through the kitchen carrying clean bowls.

"It made the same sound yesterday. I put it on the maintenance slate." Three people had now dealt with problems I had not actually asked them to solve. I finished wiping the stove.

"I was leaving anyway." Nessa nodded as though we had finally reached the correct answer. After lunch, I carried the two baskets and the padded case across the city. My parents' workshop had acquired another rack since my last visit. Ordinary repair work still filled the benches along the walls. A cabinet door sat beneath clamps, several cooking pans waited beside Father's tools, and someone had left a garden rake bent nearly in half with a tag claiming it had broken during ordinary use.

The center of the room belonged to Benson Practical Works. Dark coat pieces hung from wooden forms near Mother's table. Finished frames rested in numbered racks. Small housings, buckles, stop tabs, and refill fittings filled shallow boxes along Father's bench. Their order board had spread into a second column. Mara's bakery was still there. So were Kerrin Mill, Rook's, the wall maintenance crews, two pottery shops, and a laundry. Several newer names had appeared beneath them.

Mother looked up from a sleeve she was fitting.

"You brought the plate."

"And the inserts."

"We sent those to make sure the plate came with you." I set the baskets on the large table.

"That was unnecessary."

"It worked." Father came from the rear bench wiping his hands on a cloth.

"Open it." The master plate filled most of the padded case. Twenty repeated cooling patterns crossed its underside in five rows of four. The conductor paths were already set. Movable wooden guides beneath the plate allowed the same frame to hold the three insert sizes Mother had standardized. The basic problem had stopped being complicated once every insert no longer needed its own design. That did not mean I trusted it yet. Mother came closer and ran her fingers along one of the guides.

"You changed the broad row."

"The old spacing pulled too close to the refill point."

"That should work." I took one regular insert from the basket and laid it beneath the first position. The edge lifted. I tried again. It still refused to lie flat.

"You changed the seam." Mother returned to her cutting table.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Last week."

"The drawing I have shows the old seam."

"I sent another one." Father stopped opening the battery case. I looked at him. He pointed toward the shelf beside the door. A folded envelope sat beneath two invoices with my name written across the front. I remembered receiving it at the restaurant. I did not remember opening it.

"The restaurant has been busy." Mother kept cutting.

"The workshop did not stop while you were busy." That was fair. I opened the revised drawing. She had moved the side seam away from the wearer's ribs after the old version pulled when someone bent sideways. The plate itself did not need changing, but the guide did. Father brought over a narrow tool.

"This is why you wanted these adjustable."

"Yes."

"Good. I was beginning to think I had spent half a morning making them move for decoration." We shifted the first guide outward and changed the corner stop near the refill fitting. Mother returned, settled the insert beneath the plate, and pulled the fabric smooth with both hands.

"That sits properly." We loaded six pieces for the first test. I connected one green mana battery and closed the clear cover over its slot. The battery held a measured charge behind a fixed regulator. If the setting plate tried to draw too quickly, the battery would close its own line. Father had heard the explanation before. Mother had heard enough of it. I activated the plate. A low hum passed through the frame. Pale blue lines appeared beneath the master pattern and settled into all six inserts together.

They held for several breaths before the battery stopped feeding the plate and the light faded. Mother lifted the nearest insert. She tested the cooling surface, pulled the physical stop, dampened the outer edge to check the wet cutoff, and then tested two more.

"The corners are cleaner." I checked them myself. She was right. The hand-set versions worked, but I had always needed small corrections along the outer channels. The master plate had distributed the pattern more evenly than I did when drawing each insert separately. Father began clearing space for the full frame. We loaded twenty pieces. Mother handled the cloth because she could place and flatten them faster than either of us. Father checked the housings and guides.

I lowered the master plate, locked in the same green battery, and started the cycle. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The loading took several minutes. The magical part took less than one. When the light faded, Father lifted the plate and stared down at the finished rows. He glanced at the clock.

"How long did these take before?"

"Usually close to an hour each." Mother stopped stacking them.

"You said it was slow."

"It was."

"I thought you meant ten minutes."

"Ten minutes would have been very good." Father sat down on the edge of his bench.

"How many did you make that way?"

"Enough."

"That is not a number."

"I thought we were discussing the new process." Mother placed another finished insert in the box.

"We are discussing why our son spent an hour drawing the same thing twenty times before deciding that was inefficient."

"I knew it was inefficient." She looked at me.

"I had not solved it yet." That answer satisfied her slightly more. I moved on to the charging cradle. The workshop already had a low-output city mana line for lamps and small tools. It could not power the plate cleanly by itself. The current varied too much, especially when Father used the grinder at the rear bench. It could charge a battery slowly. The battery could then supply the plate at a steady rate. I mounted the cradle beside the tool cabinet and connected the line.

Three simple marks showed whether a battery was empty, charging, or full. Mother came over when the first mark appeared.

"I like this part."

"You like the plate."

"The plate works. This tells me what it is doing without a lecture."

"I do not lecture." Father was arranging the next batch.

"You explain past the point where the question has been answered."

"That is different." Neither of them responded. I decided to check the battery. The first green block had now set twenty-six inserts between the smaller test and the full run. Its charge remained comfortably above half. Father loaded the second full batch while I watched. He set the guides, checked the housings, lowered the plate, locked the battery cover, and pressed the setting mark. Nothing required me.

When the cycle ended, Mother checked the first, middle, and last inserts before placing them with the finished stock. Forty working inserts had now been set using the same battery. I picked it up and checked the remaining charge. A little more than half. Father was watching me.

"Something wrong?"

"No."

"Then stop looking like there is." I put the battery down. He returned to the frame and adjusted one of the guides before asking, "Did you ever think about doing this instead?" I looked at the plate.

"I am doing it."

"Before the restaurant." His tone was casual. He kept working while he spoke, which made the question easier to hear.

"You could have worked for an enchanter. Rune shop, repair house, guild equipment office. You had the training for all of them." Mother threaded a needle at the other table.

"You could have taught theory." I looked toward her. She shrugged.

"You always knew the material." Father smiled.

"And you enjoy telling people when they are wrong."

"I enjoy knowing why something is wrong."

"That would also work in a classroom." I began sorting the remaining inserts by size.

"There were options." Father rested one hand on the wooden frame.

"I know. That's why I wondered." There was no criticism in it. He was simply asking. I had known about those jobs too. There had always been notices at the guild and the magical shops near the academy. Rune assistants. Repair apprentices. Workshop technicians. Record instructors. I could have done some of them well. That had never been the problem.

"I didn't want them." Mother's needle slowed. Father nodded once, but he waited.

"I could have spent every day repairing heating arrays or copying rune plates. I probably would have been good at it." I fitted another insert between the guides.

"I just didn't want that to be my whole day." Mother looked around the workshop.

"You repair things here."

"When there is a reason."

"There is usually a reason in a repair shop."

"You know what I mean." She did. That was why she smiled a little and returned to the sleeve. The restaurant had begun as the other plan I refused to talk about before my fifth examination. At the time, even thinking about it too clearly had felt disloyal to the thing I had spent twelve years trying to become. It did not feel that way anymore. Father passed me another insert.

"You still wanted to be a wizard."

"Yes." Mother looked up again. The answer had come without any hesitation, though it no longer carried the weight it once had. Father settled against the bench.

"Do you still?" I thought about it while I aligned the next row.

"I think so." Neither of them seemed especially surprised. I appreciated that. Mother tied off her thread.

"But no sixth examination."

"No."

"Because you know what will happen." I nodded. The fireball had not worked in practice before the fifth examination. I had gone anyway. Not because I believed the problem had disappeared. Because I hoped that one attempt might finally hold. My control had improved over the years. The pieces were cleaner. I could form the spell, stabilize it for longer, and prepare the release correctly. Then I tried to make all of it travel together. The spell fell.

By the fifth attempt, I had worn the fire-resistant boots on purpose.

"I took it five times because I wanted to pass," I said.

"I knew the fireball was still unreliable. I kept hoping that the next examination would be the time it stayed together." Father turned a small wooden stop between his fingers.

"And now?"

"Now another examination would ask me to do the same thing again." Mother watched me for a few seconds.

"You don't think studying more would help?"

"I studied for twelve years."

"That was not exactly my question."

"I know." I adjusted the last insert in the row before continuing.

"I understand the spell. More theory is not what I'm missing. Working in a rune shop would make me better at rune work. Teaching would make me better at explaining theory. Neither changes the part I can't do." Father was quiet for a while.

"Does that bother you?"

"Yes." It would have been dishonest to say otherwise. I had wanted the silver certification pin. I had wanted the guild classification. I had wanted to walk out of the examination hall as someone who had finally become what he had spent years trying to become. That had not vanished just because other parts of my life became good.

"It bothers me less than it did." Mother rested the half-finished sleeve in her lap.

"Because of the restaurant?" I considered the question.

"Mostly because I like my life." The workshop went quiet for a moment. I looked at them.

"That sounded more dramatic than I intended." Father smiled.

"It was fine."

"I like cooking. I like the restaurant. I like working with Tovan, even when he moves my spoons. I like building things when they solve an actual problem." I looked around the workshop.

"I like that people are ordering these because they want them." Mother's gaze dropped briefly to the cooling coat in her hands. I continued more quietly.

"I don't need to keep taking an examination just to prove I haven't given up." Father nodded. That was enough for him. Mother was less easily finished.

"If the answer changed someday?" I looked down at the unfinished row.

"Then I would decide what I wanted to do with it." She studied me for a moment, apparently checking whether there was more hidden inside the sentence. There was. I did not know what shape it had yet. She let it stay there. Instead, she pointed toward the wrapped food Tovan had packed into my bag.

"Eat."

"I had lunch." Father had already opened the parcel.

"You brought three hearth cakes."

"Tovan put three in there."

"So he expected you to share."

"I do not think that was his intention." Father took one anyway. Mother passed me the remaining parcel. I ate before they could reorganize my food as efficiently as they had reorganized the workshop. The third batch belonged entirely to them. Mother loaded a mixture of regular and broad inserts while Father entered the previous batch in the workshop record. She checked the guides, lowered the plate, fitted a fresh green battery, and started the cycle. I stayed at the other bench.

When the light faded, she lifted the plate and tested the required pieces without asking for me. Nothing went wrong. That felt better than watching a perfect test I had performed myself. Father picked up the operating sheet I had written and began reading it while Mother arranged the finished inserts. He turned it over. Then he looked at me.

"This has another side."

"Yes."

"It should not."

"It contains the battery limits." Mother held out her hand. Father gave her the page. She read the first section, found a pencil, and began crossing out sentences.

"You cannot remove the safety instructions."

"I'm removing your explanation of the safety instructions."

"The explanation matters."

"If the battery gets warm, what do I do?"

"Stop using it."

"If the seal breaks?"

"Do not use it."

"If the cooling comes out uneven?"

"Stop the batch and send the plate to me." She continued crossing things out.

"That is what we need." The final card was much shorter than mine. Check the test piece before the first batch. Use green batteries only. Check the first, middle, and last insert after setting. Stop if the battery becomes warm, the seal is damaged, or the cooling is uneven. I added one final instruction telling them not to open a damaged battery. Mother allowed it. By late afternoon, several boxes of finished inserts stood beneath the order board.

The charging cradle held one green battery while Father locked the others in the cabinet. The workshop could now finish ordinary cooling inserts without scheduling around me. Before I left, Mother handed me an envelope from the first completed order cycle.

"Your design share."

"The workshop can keep it."

"The workshop has its own money."

"You need more fittings." Father locked the cabinet.

"Then Benson Practical Works buys fittings." Nessa would have approved of that answer immediately. I put the envelope inside my coat. At the door, Father looked back toward the setting plate.

"You know, becoming a wizard wouldn't make any of this less useful."

"I know." He gave me a long look. This time, he seemed to believe I meant it. The Second Spark was well into evening service when I returned. Nearly every table was occupied. The hungry cupboards opened and closed along the outer wall, and two couriers waited beside the counter for collection parcels. Tovan worked the main stove wearing one of my parents' cooling coats beneath his apron.

Evelyn stood near the cupboard route with a list in one hand while Nessa moved between the tables with her ledger tucked beneath her arm. No one looked as though they had been waiting for me. I liked that. Tovan noticed the empty baskets.

"How many?"

"Sixty finished." He paused over the grain pot.

"This afternoon?"

"The setting takes less than a minute. Loading and checking take longer." He looked toward the battery case.

"Your parents ran it?"

"Father did the second batch. Mother did the third." A small smile appeared.

"So you went there to make yourself unnecessary."

"Only for ordinary production."

"That sounds close." Evelyn came through with a cupboard slip.

"They can use it without you?"

"Yes."

"Good. We need six more road meals when the stove is free." She continued toward the front. Nessa arrived several minutes later. I gave her the shorter version: the plate worked, the batteries could recharge at the workshop, and my parents could handle regular production. Only a damaged tool or changed design needed to come back to me. She listened until I finished.

"So you don't lose an afternoon every time they receive an order."

"No."

"Good." She returned to the dining room. No calculations followed. I washed my hands and joined Tovan at the stove. One sauce had thickened near the edge. The grain needed more stock, and someone had left the long spoon beside the wrong pan. They were ordinary problems, which made them pleasant. We finished service together. Evelyn left at her scheduled bell with food wrapped for Nell and Corin. Tovan covered the remaining grain for breakfast.

Nessa sat at the corner table with the day's accounts while I reheated a bowl and put it beside her ledger before going upstairs. The first green battery from the workshop remained in my case. It had helped set forty inserts and still carried a little more than half its charge. I had brought it back to check before returning it to Father. I opened the housing, inspected the plates, and found nothing wrong. The battery could have gone directly back into the case.

Instead, I left it on the worktable while I put everything else away. The armor chest rested beneath the bed within reach of my foot. I noticed it. Then I sat down at the desk and turned the green battery over once in my hand.