A day's worth of cold cut steel and red iron rolled acrid and sweet scents together in the smithshop's foyer. Canary-yellow light from the high ceiling tinted everything as if through a screen. A sandy-skinned adult confronted a team of two white guys and a woman, all somewhere in their late twenties to early thirties, on opposite sides of a cashier station.

Their argument paralyzed both Roses several feet from the scene, especially since everyone had to raise their voices to be heard over roaring ovens.

The customer towered forward. He planted both fists on the counter. "You should be grateful for my business, not making demands like these." Mint-green suspenders flexed over his chest and shoulders, while they clasped the waistline of his khaki pants. Black leather shoes gleamed. The ceiling lights were bright enough to reveal a tank-top underneath his dress shirt. They left little of his muscle to the imagination. He was built like a strongman, perhaps a hunter — powerful enough to destroy monsters with the right gear.

The craftworker closest to their customer had his arms folded and was smiling tight-lipped, though his fierce eyebrows scowled. "You're making it a little difficult."

"I won't pay you for something as menial as this," said the customer.

"You're kidding."

"You should be begging to service me. I can single-handedly make or break your business. My thanks alone should be enough to get you on your knees."

"Let me show you my bills, then." The blacksmith dared to lean forward on his counter so they were inches from each other's noses. White scars circled the worker's hands and arms. His chuckling was laced with anger. "Your thanks won't renew my lease. Your thanks won't replace my worn tools and the oil I need. Your thanks won't clean the vents." He rubbed his fingers together like he was scraping the faces of coins — insisting on lien.

"It's outrageous! It's a scandal!" The customer shoved back from the counter.

Mom punched his elbow playfully. "Easy, there."

"Don't touch me." The grown-up dusted himself off, then lifted off the ground a duffel bag. Parts of its contents bulged against the insides at odd angles.

Mom cocked her shoulders so one was higher than the other. "Do you have to act like that in front of my daughter?"

The customer didn't cool the ruddiness in his cheeks, until he took in Mom's appearance a second time. Though his face returned to its usual color, hostility still shook his voice. "They're lucky you came around when you did, Ms. Rose. It was about to get ugly."

"Ohhhhhhh." Mom was a few inches from touching his elbow again, except tension in her forearm belied what she wanted to do, instead, if she had grappled him.

Ruby shouted from behind Mom, "I can see your underwear, mister."

He glanced down his front, checked the waistline of his khakis, and made sure his zipper was up, so when he questioned Ruby by sneering in her direction, she giggled.

She could, though — see his underwear — if his muscle-shirt counted.

At least she'd diffused the pressure and avoided a fight. It was all she could do so Mom didn't have to throw down a bully, because the last time Mom put up her guard in public, she crashed someone twenty feet through a window without using a weapon.

The blacksmith's customer stormed out while grinding his teeth, and a moment later, Mom reunited with her friends.

She embraced them all at once, though her outfit was patted with brown and black when they separated. "I've missed all of you."

The way they greeted one another wasn't the same as her standard joy when seeing someone she recognized, like when Mr. Basil had revealed himself or while picking up Ruby's sister in the evenings.

Someone older than Ruby's Mom, even though she wore the same face and used the same voice, met the Aged Steels — a woman with unspoken history and secrets to hide.

Ruby took a framed photo off their cashier's counter, because she recognized three of the four subjects were standing in front of her. Seeing their picture got her curiosity while no one was paying attention. She hoped it was a clue at how they knew each other. This wasn't the company Mom or Dad kept normally. None of these craftsmen had visited them at home, so she wanted to know who they were that knew Mom so well, they received a whole different version of the woman.

A dark metal plate in the frame's bottom read, "STEL", above a date several years past. She wasn't even born when this was taken.

Two men and two women in their early twenties posed together, but one of them wasn't around anymore.

The woman who she temporarily called E waved good-bye and retreated to their forges, saying she was going to shut everything down for the evening. She was the widest among them in the past, and she still was to that day. A hairnet bound her ginger frizzes against her head.

She moved down an aisle flanked by work spaces — sections of the forge arranged like they were different studios. It was a museum of projects in the making, covered in tarps.

As the discussion continued, ovens were put to rest. Their noises faded one at a time, diminishing the blaze enough for everyone to lower their voices.

Meanwhile, the man Ruby could only call T so far, who had defended against the customer most, leaned on his counter. He was slimmer than the others. Salt flaked his tawny hair and several whiskers around his mouth. "That's the year we graduated Beacon Academy."

"What?" Ruby asked.

"That picture you're holding. It was taken after our fourth year."

Ruby put the photograph back where she found it. "You're huntsmen?"

The other guy responded, the one whose name began with L. "Your Mom's team wouldn't have been so popular if we started at the same time." A walnut-brown blotch covered half of his right cheek and extended below his collar, a birthmark that resembled faded splashes of paint.

Ruby hopped over to them. "I want to go to Beacon, too."

"That's a long ways ahead of you," said L.

"You'll get there one day." T beckoned for Ruby to come closer and gestured after his teammate, E, though the woman had disappeared from view. "You should go find Ember so I can talk to your Mom about something."

"Like what?"

"Boring money stuff. You wouldn't like it."

"Yawn!" Once Ruby strolled deep enough into the forge, though, she hid behind a tarp and eavesdropped on the grown-ups. Her whole face contorted and she cupped the side of her head trying to listen.

They hushed themselves, but as the ovens were shutting down, they weren't quiet enough to be out of earshot.

Mom said, "This can't be worse than last year, right, Teddy?"

"It's not any better, which means about the same thing."

L said, "I don't see the numbers, but our commission output was downright zero for a while."

"How is it nowadays?" Mom sounded hopeful.

Teddy's voice darkened. "No one asks for custom weapons work these days. The application process for Beacon has gotten too strict, and it's hurting our business."

"It's not that huntsmen are buying from corporates anymore," L added.

Mom finished their notion softer than the others. "Of course. Students are making things themselves." Someone snapped their fingers to confirm what she'd figured out, but she continued in a brighter tone. "But your work stations back there look so full. Does that mean business is looking up?"

L hesitated during his answer. "That is up to interpretation. We're working on a few big somethings."

For an example, Ruby checked the work station behind her. Fishnetting filled the space between two columns, both twice her height and constructed out of pipe sections. She didn't know what the whole device was supposed to be or what it would turn into when it was completed.

This time, Teddy picked up where his teammate left off. "You won't like this, but please understand. We might be partnering with someone who can help us."

Since all of the distant furnaces had died down, Ember's shoes approached along the central aisle. She was plodding closer, seconds away from Ruby's hiding spot, but their steps halted somewhere along the way.

The conversation lulled, as well. Ruby strained to hear anyone whispering, but the only noises came from distant clangs of metal on metal — neighboring workshops that hadn't finished their work and were steadily hammering.

The curtain in front of Ruby peeled away. Ember held a finger to their mouth to keep them both hushed, then beckoned for the little girl to follow.

The desk was all that blocked Ruby's site of the group. They couldn't see her if she couldn't see them.

As soon as Ruby took the blacksmith's hand and left with her, Mom picked up where their dreadful silence had filled the gap.

She sounded uncertain. "You're being bought?"

Ember spoke over the conversation to take away Ruby's attention, quiet enough so only the little girl could hear. "Want me to show you what I'm working on?"

"Yeah!" Ruby adjusted the tarp back the way she found it so it covered the workspace.

They left behind the group to their grown-up issues, because this was not a discussion for a six-year old girl, and the industrial shop — oh gosh, she needed to see what this wondrous new sanctuary had to offer.