The leather creaked as Bryce worked the first buckle, and Elara let her forehead rest against the timber. Her body was still heavy against the cross, her legs not quite ready to carry all of her weight again.
The pressure around one wrist eased.
She didn’t want to move yet. Didn’t want to leave the shape the cross had pressed her into.
Bryce worked the second buckle. Methodical. Unhurried. He’d always been like this after—careful with the release, patient with her return.
Her other wrist came free.
Elara lowered her arms slowly and stayed where she was.
Her eyes drifted.
The timber beside her head bore the mark burned into its grain—an open circle, the letters Si nested inside it. She’d seen it on things Bryce had made before, traced it in the workshop, watched it appear across their leatherwork and furniture.
Her fingers found it now.
Rough under her touch, the burn deep enough to catch at her fingertip.
She traced the circle once.
“If it’s worth building,” Bryce said behind her, his voice low and steady, “it’s worth signing.”
She left her finger over the Si.
Across the barn, Luke’s attention had gone to one of the leather cuffs. The same mark had been tooled into its end.
He ran his thumb across it.
Erin leaned closer to Holly.
“Same mark.”
Holly looked from the cuff to the cross, then across to Elara.
Bryce’s hand settled at Elara’s waist.
“You still with me?”
“Yeah.” Her voice came out rougher than she’d expected. “Just…”
She looked at the mark again.
“It’s just a stamp,” Bryce said. “Something to say we made it. That it’s ours.”
Elara turned her head enough to look at him.
“It’s on the leatherwork too.”
“It is.”
“The collar?”
“My collar,” she added.
Bryce nodded.
“Same mark.”
Elara looked back at the cross.
Luke was still turning the cuff over in his hand.
Erin said something quietly to Holly. This time Elara caught it.
“What does it mean?”
Holly looked towards Bryce, then Elara.
“It means they built it together.”
Elara stayed against the cross for another moment.
Bryce didn’t hurry her.
Eventually she pushed herself upright. Her legs held, although the first step made her stop until the faint wobble passed.
Bryce remained beside her.
She reached back and touched the mark once more before stepping down from the stage.
The others watched her come towards them.
Sophie sat beside Matt, quieter than she had been on the ride. Holly had shifted closer to Erin. Luke still held the cuff, while Liam and Joel occupied the other end of the pew.
Elara walked past them and went to the bar.
She poured herself a whiskey.
Bryce came up beside her but didn’t touch her.
“You okay?”
Elara took a sip.
“I’m still here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She looked at him.
“I’m better than okay.”
Bryce took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“Good.”
Luke joined them a moment later and put the cuff on the bar.
“The mark really is everywhere.”
“Not everywhere,” Bryce said.
“Yet,” Elara added.
Bryce looked at her.
She smiled into her glass.
Luke’s thumb passed over the mark again.
“Furniture. Leather.”
“Tools,” Elara said.
Holly came over with Erin.
“And collars.”
Sophie looked up from the pew.
“Mine better have it.”
Matt laughed.
“You don’t even own one yet.”
“Exactly.”
Holly pointed at Sophie. “She’s right.”
Erin nodded. “Mine too.”
Bryce looked at the three of them.
“Apparently I’ve got work to do.”
Elara took another drink.
The whiskey burned pleasantly through the lingering haze.
Luke looked back towards the cross.
“You designed the mark together?”
Elara shook her head. “He did.”
Bryce leaned against the bar.
“Closest I could get to obsidian.”
Luke frowned.
“Si?”
“Silicon. Circle is oxygen.”
There was a brief silence.
Holly stared at him.
“Of course it is.”
Erin laughed.
Elara smiled. “I told him it was nerdy the first time too.”
“It works.”
“It does.”
Luke looked down at the cuff again.
Bryce’s explanation should have made it smaller. Just chemistry reduced to a shape, burned or stamped onto the things they made.
It hadn’t.
Elara looked across at the cross, then at the cuff beneath Luke’s hand.
Holly had seen something else in it.
So had Erin.
And Sophie wanted the same mark on something that didn’t even exist yet.
Elara finished her whiskey and set the glass down.
Luke placed the cuff beside it.
“Still just a maker’s mark?”
Bryce looked at him.
“That’s what it is.”
Elara smiled.