“Can I have some paper and a pencil?” Rune asked.
“You can use Father Johann’s. He was very protective of his sacristy.” She smiled fondly. “But he’s not here anymore, is he?”
With that, she stepped out and closed the door behind her.
Rune moved to sit at the table, and Seraphina leaned her walking stick against a shelf and found a chair that wasn’t occupied by a stack of books. She sat down and leaned over the table, feeling frustrated that she couldn’t see the lattices herself.
“Well?” she prompted.
“They are in bad condition, but not beyond repair,” he said, picking up the lattices one by one and spreading them on the table.
“So, you can do it? You can fix them?”
“I believe so.”
Seraphina scoffed and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. She opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind. What was there to say? So, he was a weaver. Or had the skills of a weaver.
At Krähenstein Academy, there were a few stages to become a proper weaver. Children who showed talent and an innate sense for relics were recruited early, when they were nine or ten years of age. Once at the academy, they studied patterns, learned about materials, stitchwork and geometry for the first two years, and started handling bone shards only in the third year, when they became apprentices. After two years of apprenticeship, they could move on to an assistant role in the academy’s lattice shops, where they fixed classes C and D lattices. The next stage was that of a journeyman weaver, when they would finally be allowed to make classes C and D lattices from scratch, following patterns already established, and after that followed the role of senior journeyman, when they were experienced enough to work on classes A and B lattices. Most stopped there. Not because they wanted to, but because that was how far their talents and skills took them.
Few senior journeymen advanced to master weavers, who could create new patterns and revolutionize the art of lattice weaving. Even fewer could go through the stages in half the time the academy’s program advised. Matteo had advanced at a steady pace and become a master weaver rather late, when he was twenty. Falk Kühner had become a master weaver at seventeen. Now, he was the High Harvester.
Seraphina hadn’t felt frustrated by her blindness in a long time. Had she been able to see what Rune was doing, how he handled the bone shards and what he was drawing on the piece of paper he’d pulled toward him, she could’ve judged his skilland the stage he was at. As it were, she was effectively... in the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They didn’t live in a world that offered many cheerful occasions.
It must have been close to midnight when Willa knocked on the door to the sacristy and entered. Seraphina jolted awake, having dozed off with her head resting on her folded arms. She’d asked Rune to tell her about the lattices, where they were broken and how he planned to fix them, and he’d droned on about how he was pulling them apart first, stitch by stitch and shard by shard, until she fell asleep.
When the woman poked her head in, Rune pulled his cloak back over his head.
“It’s late,” Willa said. “You should eat something and sleep. I took your horses to the Black Eagle, and Peter’s sons have fed and watered them. Peter is the tavern owner. I told him about you two, and he said he has a room, if you want it. He’s also made you a hot meal.”
“All right,” Seraphina said, yawning. “Thank you.”
She got up and took her walking stick but didn’t hear Rune follow her lead. He was hunched over his work.
“You’ll continue tomorrow,” she told him.
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Many of the shards are cracked or rough around the edges. Some will need to be recut, others only filed.”
“I can help. Though I’ve never done it without seeing, but I can try.”
“You will?”
She gave him a smile. “It seems a shard technician is what you need, and I happen to be one, though I might be a little rusty. You’ll tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“All right.”
“Tomorrow, though. Now I’m so tired that I can barely think straight.”
Rune nodded and placed the shards he’d removed into the box.
“Does the door to the sacristy lock?” he asked Willa.
“It does.”
“I’d feel better if it were locked.”
