Price asked Lenora to repeat her statement.
She did so with her hands clasped tightly at her waist.
Silas interrupted twice, but Price ordered him to remain silent.
The merchants looked at one another in disbelief.
Curtis tried to leave again.
This time Pritchard stood in the doorway.
“Move,” Curtis ordered.
Pritchard shook his head.
“You will stay until we understand what happened to the machine.”
Curtis reached for the cane beside the workbench.
Gideon picked it up first.
He held it away from Curtis without swinging it.
Price turned to Silas.
“If Mrs. Fenwick is being detained against her will,

I am leaving this property to inform the magistrate.”
Silas laughed harshly.
“You are taking the word of a frightened woman over mine.”
“I am taking the word of your wife.”
“She is unwell.”
Lenora flinched.
Price looked at her.
“Do you wish to withdraw your statement?”
“No.”
Silas’s face darkened.
“You do not understand what you have done.”
“I understand more than I did yesterday,” she replied.
Price closed his leather case.
“I will not purchase this machine.”
Silas stepped toward him.
“You cannot walk away after making promises.”
“I promised to examine it.”
“You will ruin me.”
Price glanced at the broken wheel.


“You began that work without my help.”
Isaiah watched Curtis edge toward the window.
He knew the man was measuring escape routes.
He also knew the kiln remained guarded by Abel, whose family could be threatened at any moment.
“Mr. Price,” Isaiah said.
Price turned.
“If you go for the magistrate, Curtis will reach the kiln first.”
Curtis laughed.
“You think I need permission to walk across my employer’s land?”
Isaiah ignored him.
“Mrs. Fenwick needs someone to go there now.”
Price hesitated.
The merchants shifted uncomfortably.
Neither offered to help.
Lenora looked toward Silas.
“Give them the key.”
Silas’s face went blank.


“What key?”
“The key Curtis carries.”
Curtis’s hand moved toward his belt.
Isaiah saw the motion and stepped forward.
Curtis swung at him with his elbow.
Isaiah stumbled against the bench but caught himself.
Gideon shouted.
Pritchard seized Curtis’s arm.
The two men struggled beside the door.
A wooden box fell and scattered tools across the floor.
Curtis shoved Pritchard away and ran into the yard.
Isaiah followed him without thinking.
Behind him, Price shouted for someone to bring horses.
Curtis reached the stable first.
He grabbed a bridle and threw it over the nearest horse.
Isaiah stopped at the doorway.


He had no weapon and no intention of fighting a mounted man.
Instead, he pulled the stable gate shut.
Curtis cursed and turned toward him.
“You cannot keep me here.”
“I only need to keep you long enough.”
Curtis looked over Isaiah’s shoulder.
Price and the merchants were running across the yard.
For the first time, Curtis looked uncertain.

Chapter Thirteen: The Road to the Kiln

Curtis abandoned the horse and climbed over the stable wall.
Isaiah shouted a warning as the overseer dropped into the lane.
Price reached the gate and saw Curtis running toward the orchard.
“Which way leads to the kiln?” he asked.


Isaiah pointed toward the ridge.
“The direct path is shorter, but he knows every turn.”
Price looked at the merchants.
“Will you come?”
One man nodded.
The other hesitated and returned to his carriage.
Isaiah did not wait for either.
He ran toward the ditch behind the cattle pens.
Gideon caught up with him carrying a lantern.
“You should not be here,” Isaiah said.
“Neither should Mrs. Fenwick.”
They crossed the ditch and climbed through the thorn bushes.
The kiln chimney appeared above the trees.
A thin line of smoke rose from it.
Isaiah stopped.
“Abel would not light a fire this early.”


Gideon raised the lantern.
“Then Curtis sent someone ahead.”
They hurried toward the building.
The back door stood open.
Inside, Ada Fenwick was struggling to free her wrist from the chair.
Abel lay on the floor beside a pile of broken boards.
He was conscious but dazed.
Isaiah rushed to him.
“What happened?”
“Curtis’s cousin came before dawn,” Abel said.
“He told me to leave, and I refused.”
Gideon moved toward Ada.
“Where is the key?”
“On the table,” she said.
He unlocked the cuff around her wrist.
Isaiah helped Abel sit up.
The smoke was coming from a small fire beneath the workbench.


It had not yet spread to the walls.
Ada stood unsteadily.
“We need to move the drawings.”
Isaiah looked at her.
“We need to move you.”
“If those pieces burn, Curtis will claim I destroyed the invention.”
Gideon grabbed a bucket of water and threw it onto the flames.
Steam rose from the bench.
Isaiah pulled Ada toward the door.
She resisted long enough to take a small wooden case from beneath the chair.
“Thomas made this,” she said.
The case contained a series of thin templates and a folded sheet of measurements.
Isaiah recognized the careful marks of a craftsman.


Outside, hoofbeats sounded on the path.
Curtis had found another horse.
He rode into the clearing and saw the open door.
His face twisted.
“Get away from her.”
Price appeared behind him with one of the merchants.
“Mr. Vale, stop where you are.”
Curtis turned his horse toward the narrow path.
Isaiah stepped aside rather than block him.
The horse passed within a yard of the kiln wall.
Curtis disappeared into the trees.
Price watched him go.
“He will reach the county road.”
Ada leaned against the doorway.
“Let him run.”
Price turned toward her.
“Mrs. Fenwick?”
She nodded.
“Your husband wrote to me.”


Ada closed her eyes.
“Then he may still be alive.”
Isaiah felt the weight of her words.
He had been thinking only of freeing her.
Now he realized that Thomas might be somewhere close enough to find.

Chapter Fourteen: The Missing Inventor

Price brought Ada to the mansion in his carriage.
Isaiah rode beside the driver, watching the road for Curtis.
Gideon stayed at the kiln with Abel until a wagon could carry him home.
Silas waited on the front steps.
When he saw Ada, he stepped backward.
“You have made a terrible mistake,” he said.
Ada climbed down without assistance.


“The mistake was believing you would keep your word.”
Silas looked toward Price.
“This woman is confused.”
Ada faced him.
“Then you will have no trouble answering my questions.”
Price stood beside her.
“Mrs. Fenwick will speak with the magistrate.”
Silas’s expression hardened.
“You cannot take her from my property.”
“She is not your property,” Price said.
The words hung in the air.
Isaiah felt their narrowness as keenly as their truth.
Price could defend Ada’s liberty while standing on land where Isaiah and his family remained enslaved.
Ada seemed to understand the contradiction.
She looked toward Isaiah before answering Silas.


“I am leaving, and I am taking the work my husband made.”
Silas reached for the wooden case.
Isaiah stepped between them.
Silas stopped.
“Move.”
Isaiah held his position.
“The case belongs to Mrs. Fenwick.”
Silas raised his hand.
Price caught his wrist.
“That will be enough.”
Lenora appeared in the doorway.
Her face was pale, but her voice was steady.
“Silas, let them go.”
He stared at her.
“You have destroyed everything.”
“No,” she said.
“I have stopped helping you destroy it.”
Ada looked at Lenora with open anger.
“You could have stopped weeks ago.”
Lenora lowered her eyes.


“I know.”
Ada turned away.
Isaiah watched the exchange without sympathy for either Whitcomb.
The household had changed, but its power had not vanished.
He knew that Silas could still order him punished as soon as Price left.
He also knew that Esther and Micah remained inside the estate.
He needed more than one afternoon of courage.
Price approached him near the carriage.
“I can ask the magistrate to hear your account.”
Isaiah looked at the front steps.
“Will he protect my sister?”
Price hesitated.
“I cannot promise that.”
“Then I cannot give him everything yet.”
Ada stepped closer.
“What do you need?”
“A way to keep Curtis from using my family as a weapon.”
Ada looked at Price.
“Thomas told me that Isaiah Bell helped him test the first wheel.”
Price nodded slowly.
“I remember the name.”
Ada continued.
“Thomas wrote that the machine could not be completed without the people who understood the wood.”
Isaiah shook his head.
“I helped for one afternoon.”
“You understood what he was trying to do,” Ada said.
She opened the wooden case.
Inside lay a folded page bearing several names.
Isaiah saw his own name beside Gideon’s.
Thomas had written them as contributors to the design.
Isaiah stared at the page.
The recognition did not make him free.
But it gave him a new fact that Silas could not easily erase.

Chapter Fifteen: The Family at the Door

That afternoon Silas ordered the enslaved workers to gather in the yard.
He stood on the steps with Curtis’s abandoned cane in his hand.
Lenora remained behind him.
Price and Ada had gone to Harrow Glen to speak with the magistrate.
Isaiah knew the timing was deliberate.
Silas intended to reassert his authority before anyone returned.
“Someone in this household has forgotten his place,” Silas announced.
The workers stood in silence.
Esther held Micah against her hip.
Gideon watched from the carpentry shed.
Silas pointed at Isaiah.
“You have interfered with my business and embarrassed my family.”
Isaiah stepped forward.
“I told the truth about a woman you kept locked away.”
Silas’s face darkened.
“You will answer only when spoken to.”
Isaiah looked at Esther.
Micah had buried his face against her shoulder.
Silas followed his gaze.
“Your sister will be moved to another household by morning.”
Esther tightened her grip on the child.
Isaiah felt the old fear return.
He forced himself to speak clearly.
“Who has agreed to take her?”
Silas stared at him.
“That is none of your concern.”
“It is my concern because she is my family.”
Silas raised the cane.
Before he could strike, Lenora stepped down from the porch.
“Silas, stop.”
He turned on her.
“You have said enough today.”
“No, I have not.”
She faced the workers.
“I ordered Esther to make seven coats with hidden pockets.”
Silas froze.
“I threatened her child if she did not finish them.”
Esther stared at Lenora in disbelief.
Lenora continued.
“I also ordered Isaiah to come to my room after dark and threatened his sister if he spoke about those visits.”
A murmur moved through the yard.
Silas seized Lenora’s arm.
“Go inside.”
She pulled away.
“I told Curtis that Isaiah stole from me.”
Isaiah watched the workers absorb the confession.
Ruth stood near the kitchen door with tears in her eyes.
Lenora’s voice shook.
“I knew the accusation was false.”
Silas stepped between her and the crowd.
“Enough.”
Lenora looked at him.
“You can punish them for what they say, but you cannot make me unsay it.”
Silas raised the cane again.
Isaiah moved forward instinctively.
Esther called his name.
He stopped because he saw the trap.
Silas wanted a struggle that would justify harsher punishment.
Isaiah lowered his hands.
“You have witnesses now,” he said.
Silas looked around the yard.
Every face was turned toward him.
He had built his authority on people being too frightened to speak together.
For the first time, they had heard his wife describe the threats aloud.
He dropped the cane to his side.
“Everyone return to work.”
Nobody moved until Ruth stepped forward.
“Mrs. Whitcomb, is Esther’s child being taken?”
Lenora answered immediately.
“No.”
Silas turned toward her.
“You cannot make that promise.”
Lenora met his eyes.
“Then I will make sure the magistrate hears that you intend to break it.”