Bryn arrived at a run.

Not the kind of run someone did for exercise or joy, but the tight, efficient sprint of someone late for something important and used to cutting it close. His boots slapped the cobbles of the alley behind the bakery. His breath fogged in quick bursts. The sky above the Crossroads was still more grey than blue.

He skidded to a stop at the back door, grabbed the handle, and paused for half a heartbeat to smooth his hair and wipe his hands on his trousers.

Then he went in.

Heat hit him first, like it always did—a wave that pushed back the night air, thick with the smell of yeast and smoke and something sweet he couldn’t quite name yet. The half-familiar ache in his shoulders eased a little as the door swung shut behind him. Whatever else the day brought, at least he wouldn’t be cold.

“You’re three minutes slower than yesterday,” Crumb said.

Bryn blinked. Crumb was at the main bench, folding dough with the same steady, folding-the-river way he always had. He hadn’t turned around. He couldn’t have seen Bryn come in.

“How do you even know that?” Bryn demanded.

“The ovens told me,” Crumb said. “They’re bored when you’re not here to argue with.” He jerked his chin toward the hook by the wall. “Apron. We’ve got orders stacked up already.”

Bryn rolled his eyes, but he grabbed his apron and threw it on in one smooth motion. It was stained and stiff with flour in some places, soft in others where it had been washed thin. He tied the strings behind his back as he walked, falling into a stride that felt like home now.

“Morning,” Mila said from the next bench over.

She was already elbow-deep in a mixing bowl, curls escaping from her knot, cheeks pink from the heat. Lorne was farther down, hands moving in quick, precise motions as she rolled dough into perfect little spirals.

“You two sleep down here?” Bryn asked, grabbing the nearest tub of dough.

“Only our souls,” Lorne said without looking up. “Our bodies get to visit the beds for a few hours.”

“You’re lucky,” Bryn said, pulling the tub closer. “The docks didn’t even have beds. Just sacks of grain to fall into if you didn’t want to wake up trampled.”

“You’ve mentioned,” Lorne said dryly.

He grinned and dug his hands into the dough.

The tub held the main hearth bread for the day—the kind that half the village counted on. Crumb had already mixed it; Bryn’s job was to fold and portion it. This part, he liked. The dough was heavy and warm under his fists, stubborn but willing to change, like a brawl that hadn’t quite turned ugly yet.

“Market day,” Crumb said. “We’ve got the usual village orders, plus the miller’s Harvest table. That means nothing thin, nothing sad, nothing that breaks when someone tries to sop up stew.”

“Got it,” Bryn said. “Thick crusts. Bread you can stand a knife up in.”

“Bread you can trust,” Crumb corrected. “We’re not building walls. We’re building tables.”

Bryn bit back the joke that tried to climb out of his mouth—something about building tables out of bread, which sounded like the kind of thing you only did once. Crumb was in that serious-but-not-angry mood that meant he was already running the entire day three steps ahead in his head.

The slate by the door was covered.

Loaves for the inn. Loaves for the Guard. Special round loaves with scored tops for the miller’s celebration. Baskets of rolls for the smaller houses. A last-minute addition: two dozen flatbreads for someone who had apparently forgotten they’d promised to feed their in-laws.

Bryn liked days like this. Not because they were easy—they weren’t—but because there was no space for standing still. No one could accuse him of slacking when every tray, bench, and scale was full.

He worked the dough hard and fast, counting the folds in his head.

Three folds. Quarter turn. Three more. Quarter turn. Until the dough held itself, smooth and elastic, protesting less each time he pushed it back.

“Good,” Crumb said. “Now we scale.”

Bryn reached for the scale automatically. Crumb slid a chunk of dough onto the pan and nudged the little weights until the balance arm settled level.

“Start with this weight for the miller’s loaves,” he said. “He wants them all the same. He’s counting on them to fit on those fussy boards he had made.”

Bryn nodded. Fussy boards. Fussy people. This was territory he understood. If you gave them what they wanted fast enough, they stayed out of your hair.

He took a chunk of dough, slapped it onto the scale, and shaved off a bit with a dough knife. Too light. Added more. Too heavy. Cut again. Finally, the arm balanced. He shaped the piece into a rough round and set it on the floured bench.

The next piece went faster. He was good with weights, good with patterns. On the docks, that had meant he could glance at a crate and know if someone was lying about its contents. 

Here, it meant he could get close enough on the first cut that Mila made a soft noise of admiration under her breath.

“Show-off,” she murmured.

“That’s what you hired me for,” he shot back.

“We didn’t hire you,” Lorne said. “Crumb took pity on you.”

Crumb snorted. “I took pity on the bread. It needed someone as stubborn as it is.” Bryn grinned and kept cutting.

The thing about being good with weights and patterns was that after a while, you started thinking you didn’t need the scale.

It started small. The fifth loaf landed on the pan perfectly. The sixth was only off by a hair. The seventh was so close he didn’t bother adjust—

“Scale,” Crumb said.

Bryn jerked his head up. “It’s fine.” Crumb nodded to the pan. “Check.”

Bryn set the piece of dough on the scale and watched the arm sag slightly. “All right,” he said. “A little heavy. The miller’s not going to count crumbs.”

“He shouldn’t have to count anything,” Crumb said. “We do that part. That’s what we’re paid for.”

“It’s one loaf,” Bryn said. “Shave a little off the next one, it evens out. Faster.” Crumb’s hands stilled on his own dough.

Mila and Lorne both looked up, then quickly looked back down as if the bench had suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world.

“Faster isn’t the same as better,” Crumb said.

“It is if the bread still tastes good and no one’s left hungry,” Bryn countered. “On the docks, if you moved slower than the next man, you didn’t get work. You can’t feed people if you’re still shaping perfect little snowflakes while they’re banging on the door.”

Something flashed in Crumb’s eyes. Not anger. Something like recognition. “You hungry now?” he asked.

Bryn shrugged. “Always.”

“Good,” Crumb said. “Means you can think straight for what we’re about to do.”

He wiped his hands on his apron and stepped away from the bench. Then, very deliberately, he picked up the flour scoop and dragged it down the middle of the table.

A straight, white line, from one end of the bench to the other.

Mila’s eyebrows shot up. Lorne smirked. Bryn tensed without meaning to. “What’s that for?” he asked.

Crumb set the scoop down. “That, Bryn, is today’s lesson. On this side”—he patted the left half of the bench—“you work however you like. Docks rules. Fast as you can, shaving here, piling there. On this side”—he patted the right—“you do it my way. Scale, measure, shape, rest. No shortcuts.”

Bryn frowned. “I don’t have time to do both. You just said market day, stacked orders—”

“I said we needed bread people can trust,” Crumb corrected. “Trust takes practice. Practice takes time.” He tipped his head toward the oven. “The fire’s already built. The village is already walking this way. We’re not wasting the experiment on a slow day.”

Mila flicked a quick glance at Bryn, half sympathetic, half curious. Lorne’s hands never stopped moving, but her ear was clearly turned their direction.

“So which one do we bake?” Bryn asked. “Because the miller’s not going to take half his loaves at dock-weight and half at Crumb-weight. He’ll complain the boards look crooked.”

“We bake both,” Crumb said. “He gets the best ones. The others will find mouths one way or another.”

“That’s a lot of extra work just to prove a point,” Bryn muttered.

Crumb smiled thinly. “If you’re right, it’ll go faster and I’ll happily admit I was wrong. If I’m right, we’ll have less explaining to do later.” He stepped back, making space. “Choose your side.”

It wasn’t really a choice.

Bryn planted his feet on the left side of the flour line. “All right,” he said. “Docks rules.”

Crumb nodded once and went back to his own work, leaving Bryn with a tub of dough, a scale, and an audience that was trying very hard not to look like an audience.

He set his jaw, grabbed the dough knife, and started. Left side first. Docks side.

Cut, weigh, quick adjust. After the first few, he stopped putting every piece on the scale. He could feel the difference in his hands now—the heft, the give. One piece felt too light, so he slapped on an extra pinch and shaped it without checking. Another felt heavy, but the next one felt light; he trimmed one and added to the other in a single motion.

Fast. Efficient. The way work was supposed to be.

He shaped the rounds quickly, tucking the edges under, giving each one a quick turn to build tension. They weren’t perfect, but they stood up on the bench without slumping, which was the point.

By the time he’d filled three rows on the left, Mila was still working on her second row on the right side with her careful, exacting motions. Lorne had moved on to braids, but Bryn knew better than to compare himself to her. Lorne made dough behave out of pure spite.

“Left side ready,” he announced, unable to keep the pride out of his voice. Crumb didn’t look up. “And the right?”

Bryn glanced at the empty half of the bench. “Haven’t started yet. You wanted docks and Crumb both, I gave you docks. Now I’ll give you Crumb.”

He washed his hands quickly and moved to the right side of the line. Immediately, everything felt slower.

Scale. Weights. Cut. Weigh again. He forced himself not to trust his hands, to let the metal arm tell him when he was off.

“I could do this faster if I didn’t have to think about the little metal bird,” he muttered.

“The ‘little metal bird’ is what stands between us and a very unhappy miller,” Crumb said mildly. Bryn bit back a reply and focused.

He tried to find a rhythm that didn’t feel like drowning. Cut, weigh, adjust. Shape. Cut, weigh, adjust. Shape. His fingers itched to skip steps, but the flour line felt like a wall he couldn’t cross.

By the time he finished the first row on the right side, Mila had completed her batch and moved on to a different order. Lorne had vanished into the front shop to help with the first wave of customers.

Sweat pricked Bryn’s temples, but not from the heat. From restraint.

“Both sides ready,” he said at last, breathing a little heavier than he wanted to admit. Crumb wiped his hands, came over, and studied the bench.

The left side was full: more loaves, more dough used. The right side was neater, the rounds more uniform in size and height.

“Which ones feel better to you?” Crumb asked. Bryn shrugged. “They’re all dough.”

“Humor me.”

Bryn picked up a loaf from the left. It sagged slightly between his hands. The surface was a little rough where he’d rushed the shaping. Not terrible. Just… rushed.

He picked up one from the right. The weight settled more solidly into his palms. The skin of it felt smoother. When he pressed his thumb lightly against it, the dough pushed back with a gentle spring.

“Those are tighter,” he admitted, jerking his head toward the right. “More even.” “But the left side wins for speed,” Crumb said.

Bryn couldn’t help a grin. “Obviously.”

Crumb nodded. “All right then. Let’s see what the ovens think.”

They proofed both sets on separate boards. Crumb dragged another thin line of flour between them so no one could claim they’d gotten mixed. He loaded some of his own loaves around them so the oven wouldn’t be wasting heat on a test.

“Remember which side is which,” he told Bryn as they slid the boards in. “I will,” Bryn said. He could’ve found his way between those sides blind. The morning roared on.

By the time the test loaves were ready to come out, the shop was already busy. People came in with coins, with promises, with baskets, with gossip. The air in the front was noisy and bright; the air in the back was thick and clean, all focus and fire.

Crumb opened the oven and nodded toward the peel. “You did the work. You take them.”

Bryn swallowed and stepped forward.

He pulled out the left-side loaves first. They’d risen well enough, but as he slid them onto the cooling rack, he noticed the differences. One was pushing into its neighbor, the side crusts squashed. Another had bloomed wider than the rest, its score line blown open too far. A third had a pale patch on the side where it must have sat too close to the door.

Then the right-side ones.

They came out… calmer. That was the only word that came to mind. They held their shape. Their crusts were more even. The scores had opened in similar ways, like a row of mouths all caught mid-song at the same note.

He lined them up in two neat rows, left and right.

Mila wandered over, wiping her hands. Lorne appeared from the front, curiosity winning out over customers for a moment. Even the oven seemed to quiet, as if it were listening.

Crumb picked up a left-side loaf. He knocked his knuckles against the bottom. The sound was good enough—hollow, done—but not as clean as it could be.

He picked up a right-side loaf and did the same. The knock came back sharper. Bryn felt it in his chest.

“Crumb is Crumb,” Crumb said. “Very funny,” Mila murmured.

He set both loaves on the bench and reached for the bread knife. “No cheating,” he said. “We cut blind.”

He sliced the bottoms off both loaves so the tops looked the same, then turned them upside down and cut thick slices from each without letting Bryn see which was which. He arranged the pieces on two separate boards.

“First test,” he said. “Structure.”

He handed a slice from each board to Bryn.

Bryn turned them in his hands, examining the crumb. The left-side slice had uneven bubbles—big holes in some places, tight patches in others. The right-side slice wasn’t perfect, but the pattern of pockets was more consistent. The slice held together more firmly when he bent it.

He knew which was which.

“Second test,” Crumb said. “Mouth.”

“You’re just making up names now,” Lorne muttered.

Crumb smiled faintly. “Would you like to be excused from tasting bread?”

Lorne fell silent immediately.

They each took a bite from the first slice, then from the second. Bryn chewed slowly, forcing himself to pay attention. The first taste was… fine. A little uneven in the chew. A few bites were softer, others suddenly dense.

The second was more even. The crust crackled differently against his teeth. The crumb felt like it was working with his mouth instead of against it.

“Left-board is docks,” Bryn said through his second bite, swallowing. “Right-board is you.” “Which would you rather eat every day?” Crumb asked.

Bryn grimaced. “The right.”

“Which would you rather bake when you’re tired, behind, and have a miller breathing down your neck?” Crumb pressed.

“The left,” Bryn admitted.

Crumb nodded slowly. “There it is.” He set the knife down.

“Speed is real,” he said. “You’re not wrong about that. People on the roads don’t have time for us to sit and admire every loaf like it’s the only one we’ll ever bake. But what they’re paying for isn’t just bread. It’s not just flour and water and heat.”

“What is it, then?” Bryn asked, more defensive than he meant to sound.

“It’s not having to think about the bread,” Crumb said. “The innkeeper buys from us because she doesn’t want to worry if today’s loaves are smaller than yesterday’s. The Guard’s captain buys from us because he doesn’t want his men knocking on my door at midnight, shouting that half the bread fell apart in the stew.”

He tapped the better slice with his fingertip. “Trust. They’re paying for trust. Your side of the table”—he nodded at the left—“makes them have to think about every loaf. My side lets them forget. That’s the difference.”

Bryn shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The word trust tugged at something in his chest he didn’t like to look at too closely.

On the docks, trust had been a joke. Men smiled in your face while their hands weighed the purse a little light. You trusted tides, not people. Tides didn’t lie.

“I’m not trying to cheat anyone,” he said. “I’m just—if I can move faster, we can feed more people. Isn’t that the point?”

“It is,” Crumb said. “But only if what you’re feeding them keeps its promise once it leaves this room.”

He drew another thin line of flour with his finger, this time across the top of one of the boards.

“If you can protect trust and gain speed, I will hand you the keys to the ovens and spend my old age making pretty garnishes. Truly. I am not in love with scales and slow hands for their own sake. But if your speed breaks trust, it’s not speed. It’s theft.”

The word landed heavier than Bryn expected. Theft. He thought of faulty crates and shaved weights, of men who swore an oath and then “forgot” by morning.

“I’m not a thief,” he said, jaw tight.

“I know,” Crumb said quietly. “That’s why we’re having this conversation over a test batch instead of over a disaster.”

For a moment, the room went very still. Mila stared at the bread. Lorne watched Bryn, expression unreadable.

Crumb picked up one of the left-side loaves—the worst of them, with the blown-out side—and weighed it in his hand.

“These,” he said, “will go where they can’t hurt us. Broth. Crumbs. That pale patch is nothing a pot of soup can’t forgive.”

He set the better loaves aside.

“These,” he added, nodding to the right-side ones, “go to the miller.”

Bryn frowned. “Won’t he complain there aren’t as many as he asked for?”

“Then we tell him the truth,” Crumb said. “We had a batch that didn’t meet the weight. We’re making it up in other bread today, and we’ll discount the difference.”

“That’s… more work for us,” Bryn said, wary.

“It’s also another layer of trust,” Crumb replied. “If we say nothing and he notices, he’ll start weighing us every time. If we tell him before he asks, he won’t need the scale. Which kind of relationship would you rather have?”

Bryn didn’t like the answer that came to his tongue first, because it reminded him of too many dock-bosses who had never given anyone that kind of chance.

“I’d rather not be weighed every time,” he admitted.

“Good,” Crumb said. “Then let’s bake like men who don’t mind being weighed.” He clapped Bryn lightly on the shoulder, sending up a small puff of flour.

“Get rid of your line,” he said. “We’ve got more dough to scale, and I’d rather your hands practiced the right way until it feels faster than the other.”

Bryn hesitated, then grabbed the flour scoop and dragged it back across the bench, erasing the white divide.

Mila let out a breath she probably didn’t realize she’d been holding. Lorne went back to her braids with renewed focus.

Crumb moved toward the front, where the bell over the shop door chimed again. Bryn looked at the empty half of the bench, then at the scale.

His fingers itched to trust themselves, to cut by feel. But when he reached for the dough, he made himself set the first piece on the pan.

The arm dipped. A little heavy.

He shaved it down, watching the balance level.

“I still say we could feed more people if we moved faster,” he grumbled.

Mila smiled faintly as she passed him a clean cloth. “Maybe the point isn’t just ‘more,’” she said. “Maybe it’s ‘more for longer.’”

“Meaning?” he asked.

“Meaning,” she said, nodding toward the door, “people might come back to the place they don’t have to second-guess.”

He didn’t want to admit that made sense. So he didn’t. He just kept working, listening to the soft clack of the scale, the scrape of dough knives, the low murmur of Crumb’s voice inthe front room.

Later that day, when the miller came to collect his order, Bryn stood in the back and watched through the slight gap in the doorway.

Crumb handed over the loaves with both hands, explaining in a calm, matter-of-fact tone that some of the batch hadn’t met the mark and that they’d made up the difference in trays of rolls and thick-crusted smaller loaves.

The miller frowned at first, then nodded slowly. “I’d rather hear it from you than from my wife at the table,” he said. “Keep the account even.”

As he left, he added, “You’re the only man in this village who tells me when I’m getting less than I paid for. I’d be a fool to go anywhere else.”

Crumb just smiled and shrugged, but Bryn felt the words settle into his bones like a new kind of weight.

Later still, long after the last crate had been carried out and the benches wiped down, Bryn stayed an extra moment by the scale.

He set his hands on it gently, as if it were something alive. “Fine,” he muttered. “We’ll do it your way.”

The arm stayed level, quiet and patient.

He caught his reflection in the dull metal of the weights—sweat-damp hair, flour on his cheek, eyes that looked older than he felt sometimes—and snorted.

“But we’re going to learn how to do it fast,” he added. “Or I’m going to die of boredom before the next harvest.”

From the oven, a piece of wood popped with a sharp crack. For a ridiculous second, Bryn imagined it was laughing at him.

He shook his head, hung up his apron, and headed for the stairs, the ghost of the flour line still drawn in his mind.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, he’d beat his own time on the stairs. And maybe, just maybe, the scale’s time too.