The mill at late light is a mouth with a toothache. Miller Hew has his palm on the stone housing as if it were a fevered animal. The crack is a hairline that wants to become a disaster.

Help arrives if you fetched it. If you came lean, it is you and Hew and the stone. Hoop-iron, a mason’s listening look, a carpenter’s wedge, a tenant’s hat: tools, not a parade you have to have earned in a particular order.

Adults lift. You rig the small crane, fetch the wooden beetle, keep the children-who-are-not-you back from the pit. Mill-soke is a rule; a mill that works is a kindness inside the rule. Multure can wait until the bee-hum comes back.

Dust floats. Hew pretends not to watch your hands. The wrong note stutters, then—if the iron bites and the packing holds—settles toward a bee’s hum again. Not perfect. Market-possible.

Hew’s eye waters. He says it is flour.

He also has, in his chest, a copy of your indenture that could be fairer, and Father Tomas has a weekday that could be letters.