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Xander was more surprised than anyone by the sight of me, Preston, and Niko rushing right back to the house not an hour after I’d gone. We should have thought of it a long time ago. If Whitby could call up old schematics left behind by my parents, then surely he had access to other records, too.

Important information, such as the whereabouts of the members of the old guild!

Lore was the bigger surprise, dropping everything in the kitchen to help out by interfacing with Whitby. We filled the living room in two pockets, Team Wedding Prep and Team Halls of Making, each focused on our respective tasks. Well, to be fair, my team was mostly focused on Lore and Whitby scouring their memory banks for the right data.

And when they found it? Hoo, boy. Preston and I spent hours poring over all the information, all our reading slowed down by constant interjections about “Hey, remember this guy?” and “Whoa, I wonder where she is today?” Good thing we had Niko around to keep us on the straight and narrow.

We must have spent solid chunks of the next two days just picking through the printouts that the AIs provided for us. As exciting as it all was, though, one very stern reminder served to temper our enthusiasm. A lot of these names — a hell of a lot of them, in fact — were people who had already perished in the initial blast.

The same one that had killed my parents, that had overloaded Whitby’s systems so badly that it forced him to shut down. It was sobering, the understanding that Whitby actually was one of the very few survivors of the accident. That slowed us down considerably, how we took greater care to segment the names we were given.

Impressive, how it took the wind out of our sails, Preston and I being more mindful about picking out anyone who might respond positively to an impromptu visit from a pair of fools with a dream. Niko eventually got bored of the whole thing and wandered off, muttering something about how depressing this all was. I didn’t blame him.

We finally boiled it down to three names. Just the three! Even if all three agreed to return to the Halls of Making, we would still only end up with five artificers. It was hard to imagine that a profession once so noble and so great could have dwindled to almost nothing.

But again, the blast had ensured that the art of artifice would be viewed with so much suspicion. Many of these people would have moved on from the profession, taken up other careers entirely. Artifice was too dangerous, even just as a bullet on a résumé, a chapter in someone’s personal history.

And despite it all, Xander, bless him, was all but ready each morning to hand me a coffee and shove me straight back into diving through the names, or out the door to pay one of the old artificers a visit. I barely had to think about wedding preparations.

I was sleeping better, no longer a nervous wreck sitting up in bed screaming about cakes and flowers, and he was the boy with all the organizational gifts. He didn’t seem to mind taking on all the labor, and with only weeks to go until the big day. Gods, how I loved that man.

The first artificer we tried had actually moved on. Not dead, mind you, simply decided that their life was better spent beyond the confines of the Black Market. There was a whole world out there for mages of all stripes, even if it was only within the arcane underground. I understood why they’d moved on, too.

It was only fair that someone would want to leave the dimension entirely after the kind of disaster at the old Halls of Making. Too painful to walk the cobblestoned streets of the Black Market, to turn your head and see that your old place of work — that something that was once as familiar as home — no longer existed. I knew the pain too well.

The second artificer knew, too. She didn’t take very kindly to our visit, answering our questions with terse, clipped responses. She’d heard about our efforts and believed that this attempt to resurrect the guild was nothing more than a fool’s errand. History would repeat itself, or so she believed. Again, I didn’t blame her.

In retrospect, Preston bringing along his artificer’s hammer might not have provided the motivation we were hoping for, either. To the two of us, it was a symbol of the old guild, an emblem of the science and art of artifice. To the second artificer, it was a tool from a life she’d long left behind, a reminder of old tears and white scars, something best left forgotten.

When we visited the third artificer, we were very, very careful not to bring any hammers.

Giuseppe De Luca was the oldest person on the list, someone who could very well take over as a mentor or instructor in the new guild if he didn’t feel up to the task of actual artificing. I wanted so badly for him to tell us he would come back, not only for his wealth of experience, but for the simple fact that he was our last chance. Our only hope.

Giuseppe lived in a humbler part of town, down where the shops weren’t as fancy, where the potholes in the streets somehow took a little longer to fill in than anywhere else in the Black Market. Times were tough, it seemed, or perhaps they’d always been tough for Giuseppe, assuming he still lived at the same address.

Or maybe that was judgmental. Maybe Giuseppe just liked the place where he lived. Old Joe, some of the senior guild members used to call him. But I wasn’t taking any chances. Under no circumstances was Preston to refer to him as Old Joe.

The same went for me. What if it reminded him of more painful memories? What if he thought we were being too presumptuous? No. No more risks. No more hammers. Not when we were down to our final prospect.

We knocked on the door, the metal numbers bolted into its face grubby and unpolished, perhaps for years. Maybe Giuseppe didn’t expect visitors often. Maybe he didn’t welcome them. The curtains were drawn. The windows were like the numbers, too: grubby, unpolished. Preston and I had come unannounced someplace we weren’t wanted.

The decent side of me wanted to turn and go, to leave old men and old guild members to their lives. Who were we to kick up the dust and awaken hurtful memories? But the desperate side of me wanted to stay, to give the new guild a fighting chance, even if it only meant bolstering our numbers by one. By just the one.

Desperation won out. The door creaked open.

“Yes?” came the meek, mumbled question. A puff of musty air spilled onto the little slice of street we were standing on. From somewhere inside the house came the indistinct crackle of dialogue from an old television.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I started, venturing a small half-step forward. “This is Preston Smith, and my name is Jackson Pryde. You may have heard that we’re trying to bring the Halls of Making back together, and — ”

The door flew wide open. Old Giuseppe stood there with huge eyes, looking older and Giuseppe-er than ever in his faded pajamas and a cotton bathrobe.

“Gods above and below. Preston Smith. Jackson Pryde. It’s really — gods above and below. It’s really you. How long has it been?”

“You remember us,” Preston said, the smile and relief clear in his voice. “Giuseppe, it’s so good to see you again.”

“It’s been such a long time now,” Giuseppe said, scratching the side of his head, fingernails searching through the white shocks of hair at his temples. The man had the look of a mad scientist on his day off, but the same could be said for most of the guild of artificers. “I never thought I’d see the two of you again. Oh, where are my manners? Come in, come in.”

And so we came in. Giuseppe’s home was humble, but well kept, if a little stuffy. It seemed that he spent most of his time right here in the living room, watching only the parts of the world he cared for through his little television. He snapped his fingers and the thing flickered right off. Old, mundane technology, enhanced, no doubt, by a little bit of artificing ingenuity. I couldn’t help smiling. Some of the old guild was clearly still in his blood.

“There’s water,” Giuseppe called from the kitchen. “And I suppose I could make some tea. Sorry, boys. I don’t really have people over.”

“Water will be just fine,” Preston replied.

We watched as Giuseppe carried out some glasses on a little tray, stepping around the counter that divided his living room from the kitchen. I tried not to remark on the enormous pile of bread and baked goods on the counter, but he must have noticed me staring.

“Oh, can I offer you something?”

I lifted my hand and shook my head. “No, I’m good. Thanks, Giuseppe.”

He shrugged. “Good people over at Mother Dough, you know? Back after the — well, the accident — they came to some of us old-timers with free food. Kind of like rations, I suppose. Some of us couldn’t work anymore, see? It’s been years. I told them to stop, that I didn’t need help. But it just keeps coming.”

“Lucky you,” Preston said, a man who knew all about his baked goods. Eating them, that is.

“Well, it’s good to know that you’re comfortable,” I said.

Giuseppe groaned as he settled back in his armchair. He waved his hand vaguely. “There’s always work in the Black Market, you know? You don’t have to look very hard. But tell me. Is that why you boys are here to see Old Giuseppe?”

I scratched the tip of my nose, unsure of where to start. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the guild is rebuilt again. I mean, it’s different now, but with the help of the other guilds — what I’m trying to say is that we have somewhere to belong again. People like you, and me, and Preston. Artificers. Just like old times.”

The old man snorted. “Just hopefully with no kaboom this time, eh?”

Preston held up two fingers and crossed them. “Here’s hoping.”

“And who’s in charge?” Giuseppe asked. “Not a lot of us left, even fewer left to lead, I imagine.”

“It’s just us,” Preston answered. He elbowed me. “As for leading? Well, you’re looking at him. That’s our new guild master.”

Giuseppe’s eyes crinkled at me as his lips pursed into a strange, sad smile. “Your parents would be very, very proud.”

“Thank you. I think so, too. But look. I know it’s asking a lot. You have no reason to join us. I’m sure you’d rather be relaxing in here with all your — um, your bread and your television. But we’re doing new things these days, Giuseppe. Exciting things. It’s different now. And we’d love to have you on board. We’re still working on finding new blood, but we’ll want someone old school to teach them what’s what. Someone from the old guard, you know? Someone like you.”

Giuseppe sighed as he rose from his armchair, bones creaking, joints popping. I could almost imagine his movements dislodging a coating of dust from his clothes. No. This was a different sort of dust, the kind that came loose from the soul. A different sort of awakening.

The old artificer shuffled toward the corner of the living room, reaching for his cane, this thing that was nearly as old and knobbly as the man himself. Made of metal, it looked like, when I would have expected it to be made of gnarled wood, the way its trunk twisted in on itself, like a branch that had fallen from a very confused tree.

He turned toward the two of us with a small, soft smile, then struck the ground with his cane. My hands flew to my ears as a great metallic clanging filled the room, like the tolling of an ancient bell. The cane was gone, replaced by a familiar, welcome sight: an artificer’s hammer.

“I’ve kept it with me all these years,” Giuseppe said, smiling down at the gleaming tool, greeting it like he would an old friend. “I never thought I’d have an excuse to pick it up again, but I’m glad I held on. To the hammer, and to the dream. Good on you, kid. You’ll make the Halls of Making shine again. Good on you, Master Jackson.”

“Jackson,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck, glancing at the threadbare rug by his armchair. “Um. Jackson is just fine.”

Preston stepped forward, his huge hand gripping at the air, like his fingers longed for the touch of his own hammer. “So? How about it, Giuseppe? Can we count on you to work with us again?”

Old Giuseppe swung his hammer over his shoulder with ease, as strong and as spry as his very first day in the workshop. He smiled a smile full of missing teeth, and the room lit up with the sparkle of his spirit.

“When do we start?”