“That red will have every Shape in the valley sitting on our racks by Thursday,” said one of the grey potters, not loudly, because nobody down there said anything loudly.

Saskia Dorn held the skein higher. It was a red you could hear. They laid it against a fat brown jug and squinted. “It’s a glaze, not a bonfire. Look how the brown wakes up.”

arpus stood at the edge of the Kiln Yard with their sketchbook open, drawing the racks that climbed toward the long kiln at the top. The grey potters worked in a tight row along the lower racks, every pot dipped the same soft grey, and when Saskia’s thread swung near them they flinched like it was hot.

On the post of the first rack hung a chalk slate. One line per Beast for the Frost Firing, which lit on the eve of first frost. Some lines were chalked. Some were blank. arpus found they wanted their own up there more than they had wanted anything since walking in. The chalk had been gathering in one column near the top, plain and unmarked: the grey potters’ column. Their case was simple and they made it gently: a quiet yard brought fewer Shapes down on it. Half the yard seemed to be drifting their way, the way a crowd leans together before a song starts, and they felt the lean in their own shoulders.

At the foot of the racks a Raccoon sat on an upturned bucket, chewing a pencil. arpus went over.

“How do I get a line on the slate?”

Leopold Spruce didn’t look up. “Closed at dawn. Only the ones already on it put a pot in.”

arpus looked past them at the blank lines, plain as teeth. Three Beasts had told them before breakfast that everyone in the yard put a pot in the Frost Firing. They didn’t believe Leopold. Leopold kept chewing.

So they found an empty wheel, wet their hands like everyone else, and slapped down a lump of clay. It had just begun to rise under their palms when a Beast leaning on the nearest rack said, “Could you hold this steady a while? The leg’s going.”

The rack was loaded with somebody’s cups. The leg was going. arpus had never once said no to a question like that, and this didn’t seem the morning to learn how. They put their shoulder under the corner and held it while the stranger went off for a wedge, and the clay on the wheel slowly slumped and dried at the rim.

The wedge took a long time to come. Somewhere up the slope a potter called that the slate would be read when the kiln crew came down.

A grey potter drifted over, kind, and held out a stub of chalk. “Top column. Nobody minds.”

arpus took the chalk. Still bracing the rack with one shoulder, they stretched to the slate, found a blank line nowhere near the grey column, and wrote their own name on it in a hand that wobbled with the rack’s weight.

“It’s closed,” Leopold said from the bucket, flatly, without looking up.

arpus didn’t rub it out. The pot on the wheel was still a slumped lump, the rack was still on their shoulder, and the kiln crew was already coming down the hill.

The rain hit the storeroom roof all at once, like somebody had tipped out a crate of gravel, and every painter in the room stopped arguing to listen. At the back of the Ground the primed canvases stood on edge in long rows, white and still tacky, smelling of chalk and glue.

“Road’s out past the avenue,” said a Hare in a coat gone stiff with paint, the one Big Idea’s painters seemed to follow. “Third night dark. There’s walkers out on it.”

Nobody asked what that meant they should do. They were already lifting.

arpus had come in an hour before at the back of the crowd, the way they came into most rooms that autumn, and stood by the door watching. They watched the Hare count heads. They watched the count reach twelve and stop. Then the Hare turned round and handed arpus the lantern.

It was a good lantern. It was also what you handed the one who didn’t count.

The dozen took the canvases two to a frame and filed out into the wet. arpus stood holding the light and felt the old pull to stay where they’d been put, and to be useful and quiet at the edge. Then they set the lantern on a crate, left it burning, and took the far end of the next canvas before anyone could give it to somebody else.

“Thirteen,” they said.

The Hare looked at them, then at the lantern, then shrugged. “Thirteen. Mind the edges.”

The avenue ran out where the old road began. The last lamp burned on its post, and past it the hooks hung empty and the road went off into nothing. Under the last lamp a Bull with ink to the elbows stood beside a handcart.

“Wim,” they said, and started handing things out. “Inkworks never shuts, so neither do I. Press weights. Oilcloth under, or the wind’ll have them in the ditch by morning.”

The weights were cold iron the size of a fist. arpus shoved two in their coat.

They laid the first canvas past the last lamp. It went down with a small hollow slap on the wet stones, and the weights clinked at its corners, and there it was: a pale square in the dark, glimmering where the rain sat on it. Then the next, edge to edge. Slap, clink. Slap, clink. The dozen worked in pairs and didn’t talk, and arpus found they didn’t need to. They knew when to lift and when to kneel. Their knees soaked through and they didn’t mind at all.

“You’re the one with the wobbling line.”

The grey potter stood at the edge of the light, hood up, a lamp held low. It was the same kind voice that had offered the chalk.

“The yard heard where you’d gone,” they said. “This.” They nodded at the white running off into the dark. “You know what comes down on a bright thing at night. We’ve three racks of firing on that slope.”

“Walkers are cut off out there.”

“And Shapes will see this from the hills.” The potter wasn’t angry. They sounded tired, and frightened under it. “I’ll be at the slate when the crew reads it. Leopold will want to hear about a line written after it closed.”

arpus felt it in their chest, that line. It was the one thing they’d wanted since walking in.

“You gave me the chalk,” they said.

“I gave you the top column.” The potter turned their lamp toward the yard. “When they read it, we’ll see if yours is still up there.”

arpus watched the lamp go. Then they knelt on the wet stones, set the next weight down with a clink, and reached back for the edge of another canvas, and somebody up the line was already passing it to them.