The pottery studio was cold the moment Anya stepped inside. Fear had its own temperature.
Five potters stood around a worktable, wheels silent. Stacks of unfinished bowls everywhere like accusations.
Mira looked up. Hollow eyes.
"We're going to fail."
"What happened?"
"The restaurant contract. Five hundred serving bowls. We have two hundred. The opening is in two weeks." Mira picked up a half-finished bowl, thumb tracing the delicate curve. "Heart-craft is slow. Each piece wants its own time. We can't just stamp them out."
Elian slammed his hand on the table. Clay dust puffed into the air.
"Maybe Gareth's right! Maybe principles are a luxury we can't afford! What good is 'heart-craft' if we lose this contract? If we lose everything?"
The others looked down. No one disagreed.
The smell in the studio was wrong. Clay, yes, but stale. Uninspired. The magic had leaked out.
Mira's voice went soft. "Maybe we should call him. His system could finish this. Standardized. Efficient."
Soulless, Anya thought.
But she understood. The breaking point Chloe had warned about. The moment where fear trumped philosophy.
Anya's mind raced. The temptation was real. Gareth would send a team with molds to churn out three hundred identical bowls in days. The contract would be saved.
But the soul of their work would be dead.
"How can you work faster without sacrificing quality?"
"Shifts?" Mira shook her head, exhausted. "We'd just make more mistakes. Break more than we finish."
"Batch production? Everyone makes the same part?"
"That's Gareth's way," Elian said, bitter.
Panic spiked. Her beautiful philosophy was crumbling against the hard reality of a deadline. She had no answer.
There has to be a way. A way that honors both speed and soul.
She thought of the Harmony Hammer. Five artisans, each a master of one part of the process. Not one person doing everything, but a group specializing. Collaborating.
The Solidarity Network pulsed in her vision—not providing an answer, but confirming her intuition.
[QUERY: COLLABORATIVE PRODUCTION?]
[ANALYZING NETWORK RESOURCES...]
[SOLUTION VIABLE: REQUIRES COORDINATION]
"Nobody is calling Gareth."
The potters looked at her, hope as fragile as greenware.
"We're not working faster. We're working differently. A collaborative line."
She turned to Mira. "You're the master. Design the final form. Throw the first fifty to set the standard."
To Elian: "Steadiest hands for handles. You attach them all."
To the other three: "Bodies only. No thinking, just throwing. Muscle memory."
Mira protested: "But the glazing—that's the most delicate part. It takes days."
"The weavers from the Knot can help with wax-resist patterns," Anya said, the final connection clicking into place. "The alchemist's apprentice can mix the glazes in bulk. We'll set up an assembly line for dipping. Our assembly line."
New energy entered the room. The cold began to recede.
Not sacrificing craft. Specializing it. Honoring each person's unique strength within a collective effort.
Mira would ensure the artistic vision remained pure. The others would become masters of their specific part.
Not cogs in a machine. Organs in a body. Each essential. Each doing what they did best.
The wheels started turning. Whir-whir-whir—a beautiful sound.
Clay began to move. To rise.
Mira picked up a lump and centered it on her wheel. Her movements sure again. She had purpose.
She looked at Anya, a flicker of the old fire in her eyes.
"This might just work."
The younger potters moved to their stations. Elian flexed his fingers, preparing for the repetitive precision work ahead. One of the others, a quiet woman named Sera, took a deep breath and settled at her wheel with new focus.
Anya watched the golden threads in her vision pulse. They were weaving a new pattern right before her eyes.
They were building something that was both efficient and human. Something that respected the pace of craft while meeting the demands of commerce. Something Gareth's system, for all its power, could never comprehend.
The air in the studio began to warm. The scent of clay shifted from stale to alive again.
The real test had just begun.