Beorn reached the shelf before the others finished crossing the room.

It stretched along the back wall of the workshop beyond the press. Like the press, the objects on it were hidden beneath cloth covers. The shapes varied in size and form, with no obvious order to them. The largest sat at the far left.

Beorn pulled away its covering before anyone else had quite reached him.

A cast-iron cauldron rested on the shelf with its lid fitted in place. It was round, sturdy, and the dark gray color of well-made foundry iron.

Beorn lifted it by the handle, then steadied the lid with his other hand. He let the lid settle into the rim.

It dropped perfectly into place with a low, solid sound.

No wobble.

He lifted it and seated it again, then repeated the motion a third time so they could hear the result for themselves.

Beorn chuckled slightly, "As Aestrith kindly remembered, I’m particularly fond of standardization. These cauldrons and any other cookware will be produced in mass exactly the same, and with no flaws."

He offered it toward Beadu, already reaching for the next cloth.

Beadu accepted the cauldron with both hands. She lifted the lid. The same clean sound followed. She replaced it, then lifted it again, playing with it like a toy.

Anything related to food immediately caught her attention.

"If I had my own kitchen, this would be the first thing I’d put in it."

Beorn had already uncovered the second object.

"You have a kitchen. The citadel has a kitchen."

"The citadel kitchen belongs to the cook."

Beorn shrugged, "The cook can share, as long as you know what you are doing. Otherwise, don’t set anything on fire."

Then he pulled away the cloth.

A small device sat beneath it. Its face was marked with minute increments. A winding key protruded from one side, and a narrow bell tongue rose from the top of the casing.

Beorn wound the key. Four turns. The spring resisted more with each rotation.

Satisfied, he set it on the table.

It immediately began ticking. Each movement produced a small, precise sound.

He started to explain, "A spring drives a gear train. Set the interval you want and wind the spring. The mechanism counts down the time, then rings the bell when it’s finished."

He handed it toward Tam.

Tam took it, checked the key herself, then added a few more turns. She set the dial to one minute and listened to the ticking.

"Do you know how many times I’ve heard ’just a minute’ in the foundry?"

She turned the timer over, studying its construction.

"Nobody’s going to enjoy this nagging on their ears."

"They will get used to it."

Beorn had already moved to the next position on the shelf.

"She’s going to start to time everyone in the building," Beadu sighed.

Tam continued watching the dial.

"There are a great many things in this building that would improve if they followed a timer."

The third cloth came away.

The clock beneath it was small enough to fit in a person’s palm. Glass covered the face. Two hands rested behind it.

Beorn turned the case over and opened the back.

Aestrith stepped closer before he even called her forward. By now she had begun anticipating what he was revealing.

Inside the clock sat a tightly wound spring, coiled into a compact ring. Gear teeth engaged along its edge. Between two gears hung a small escapement mechanism.

Beorn glanced at her, "You wind it once, set the hands, and it tells the time until the spring runs down. That’s all."

Aestrith accepted the clock.

She held the open case toward the lamp and studied the workings. Her eyes moved from the spring to the gears and then back again.

"It’s rather small and handy. Not the sort of clock I expected you to create."

Beorn was silent for a second.

"I hope you didn’t imagine every invention of mine had to be an oversized machinery."

She ignored him and continued watching the gears turn. That was its own kind of confirmation.

Behind them, the timer reached the end of its cycle.

The bell rang.

A single clear note echoed through the workshop.

Before the noise had fully faded, Tam had already reset the dial, wound the spring twice, and started the mechanism again.

The ticking resumed immediately.

Beorn removed the fourth cloth.

The arithmometer was roughly the size of a thick book. A row of windows occupied the upper side. Numbered dials sat beneath them. A short lever projected from the right side.

Beorn entered a nine into one column and a seven into another.

Then he pulled the lever.

The mechanism responded with a brief series of clicks. A sharper noise followed when the carry moved between columns.

The windows settled.

Six in the units position.

One in the tens.

Beorn explained, "The gears carry values between columns the way a person carries digits while calculating on paper. The machine performs the operation in a single motion. A clerk, merchant spend most of a workday handling numbers and revenue figures. Much of that time is mathematics. This shortens the process."

He pushed the device toward Leof.

Leof picked it up immediately.

First she reset everything to zero. Then she entered a four and a three and pulled the lever.

Seven appeared.

She tried again with nine and eight.

When she pulled the lever, she watched closely as the carry passed from one column to the next.

Then she reset the machine and stared briefly at the empty windows.

"It’s like counting fingers... but a machine?"

"That is... technically correct."

A glorified mechanical calculator.

Beorn moved to the final covered object.

The last cloth concealed the smallest item on the shelf.

He lifted it carefully with both hands.

It was a wooden box about the size of a boot. An iron crank protruded from one side.

Beorn turned the crank at a steady pace.

Inside, a cylinder covered in tiny metal pins rotated against a row of fine steel teeth mounted along the lid. Each pin lifted a tooth and released it.

A clear note rang out.

Then another answered it.

More followed in rhythm, rising and falling into a simple melody. The tune was light and cheerful, the sort of thing a child might hum without realizing it. Every sound came from the mechanical process repeated in order.

The cylinder completed a full revolution.

Beorn stopped turning.

"Music."

Then he held it out toward Tam.

Tam set down the timer and accepted the box.

She turned the crank at the same speed Beorn had used.

The melody repeated exactly.

Beadu smiled before she seemed to realize she was doing it.

Tam’s expression softened as she listened. The timer, the clocks, the foundry, all of it seemed to disappear for a moment beneath the music.

Even Leof stopped thinking of questions and simply listened until the final note faded away.

The tune was simple, but when the last note faded, all three seemed disappointed that it had ended.

"Can I try it?" Beadu asked.

Tam passed it across.

Beadu turned the crank faster.

The notes remained the same pitch, but the spaces between them shortened. The melody compressed.

She slowed the crank again and they widened.

Curious, she matched the pace Tam had used, listened through the full melody, then set the box on the table.

"I think we should trade."

Tam hugged the music box to her chest.

"Rejected."

"You haven’t heard my offer."

"I don’t need to."

"What if it’s a very good offer?"

"You only have a pot to offer."

"Ugh. I’ll make some delicious soup and not give you any."

Meanwhile, Aestrith had closed the clock and now watched the minute hand advance across the face.

Leof continued to play with the mechanical calculator, checking for the results with her fingers.

Tam slowly turned the music box crank, studying the rotating cylinder.

Aestrith finally lowered the clock and looked beyond the shelf.

Further back in the workshop stood another section of covered objects.

These were larger.

They occupied floor space and a broader workbench. Unlike the items on the shelf, they seemed related. Similar shapes. Similar scale. Parts of a single project.

The largest was draped all the way to the floor.

"What are those?"

Beorn was gathering the discarded cloths into a stack.

He glanced toward the rear of the workshop.

"A more ambitious project. Making cloth without needing a person working every thread."

He set the folded coverings at the end of the shelf.

"I only need an expert now to consult about the implementation."

Aestrith studied the covered objects for a moment.

Then she looked back down at the clock in her hand.

The clock was impressive. The timer was clever. The mechanical calculator would probably save someone an enormous amount of tedious work.

But none of them felt particularly Beorn.

Beorn rarely stopped at a simple improvement. He normally continued to invent until he had declared war on a concept.

A machine that made cloth by itself, on the other hand, was exactly like something he would spend weeks building.

She looked back toward the draped objects.

The larger they appeared, the more likely they were to contain an idea that should not reasonably work.

Which meant there was an excellent chance they would.