“Who made the false floor?”

“Silas.”

“Then he knows more than he told me.”

Ruth glanced at the guard. “Or he knows only what he was paid to build.”

Daniel studied his sister’s face. She had not come merely to deliver a wedge. “What else?”

“The wagon is hitched to the finest pair of horses. Pike is sending the children who clean the drying house to work there tonight. He says the machinery needs polishing.”

Daniel swore under his breath. Children would be alone near a weighted frame that might fail at any moment. Worse, they could become witnesses or hostages.

“Get them out,” he said.

“Without Pike seeing?”

“Tell Cook their supper has spoiled. Tell them anything.”

Ruth shook her head, a quick gesture of refusal. “I am tired of inventing reasons for ordinary safety. I will tell their mothers exactly what you said.”

She took the empty pot and went away. Daniel watched her pass the guard and vanish along the kitchen path. She was making a different kind of plan, one that relied on people acting together rather than on a clever device alone.

At eleven, Aaron arrived at the forge with a bundle of nails. The guard had fallen asleep. Aaron crouched near Daniel’s chain and opened the padlock with a key Mercy had managed to borrow from the stable peg. Daniel stood slowly, legs stiff.

“You need to run,” Aaron whispered.

“If I run tonight, Pike will use the frame tomorrow.”

“You cannot stop him chained to the forge.”

“No. I need to move where he cannot see me.”

They crossed the yard through a lane of stacked barrels and entered the drying house by a service door. Inside, the air smelled of cured leaves and warm brick. Lantern light from the gallery fell in long squares across the floor. Daniel could see the counterweight suspended above a narrow pit and the cable leading to the altered bracket.

Silas Crowe was there, carrying a lantern with his left hand and a long wrench in his right. He froze when Daniel appeared.

“Did you build the wagon’s false floor?” Daniel asked.

Silas lowered the wrench. “Yes.”

“What is it for?”

“Pike told me to make room for a traveling chest. I did not ask what was inside.”

“Did you know children would be sent into the drying house tonight?”

Silas’s face changed. “No.”

Daniel gestured at the bracket. “Then remove the pin.”

Silas climbed a ladder while Aaron held it. Daniel stood below, watching the cable. Silas began loosening the retaining plate. The wrench slipped; a metallic ring echoed through the building. All three froze.

A voice rose from outside. “Who is in there?”