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scrutiny.
    Every tower in Rasenna flew a banner, but only the Vanzetti flew a multitude, advertising the family craft. Pedro was small for his age, small enough to be sitting comfortably in the window frameof Tower Vanzetti. His mother had perished upon his early arrival into the world, and he might have joined her had it not been for his father’s tireless care. Even now, Vettori Vanzetti could not be persuaded that Death was not waiting to steal his son away, and his fretting meant Pedro grew without ever losing his eggshell fragility. No amount of food would ever make this boy fat, but if Death had cast a cold eye, he would have seen small hands gripping tightly to life.
    Pedro did not believe that lacking physical stamina made him an invalid or that expending his energies on books and mechanical instruments, things most Rasenneisi had no use for, was evidence of deficiency; he ignored such whispers, just as he ignored the heated conversation in the room behind him. His eager face was creased with the intense concentration it took to hold the device steady while focusing. Freshly washed wool smelled of home to Pedro, but weaving bored him—the final product was just a basic weapon. Yet the looms with their elaborately dancing parts had fascinated him since he could remember, and his father had come to rely on him to keep the hardworking machines going, though they ought to have been replaced a decade ago. Pedro not only kept them working, he made improvements, and on those rare occasions when nothing needed repair, he returned to his experiments.
    Vettori’s conversation with his old business partner was more fractious than usual—Fabbro Bombelli was diplomatic by nature as well as by trade. The men danced around it, but now their discussion gradually spiraled toward the familiar argument.
    “We’re the Small People,” Vettori said with his practiced resignation. “That’s our fate.” He marked a length of new fabric with a chalk piece that then disappeared into his dusty leather waist jacket. He had scissors, rulers, clips, and sundry other tools cleverly secreted about his clothes, which were tight and trim as befitted a tailor.
    “Who says we have to stay small?”
    Vettori had returned to the loom. “The men who decide.” His face was stretched and unlined, and his lips were careful and tight, as if emotion were another luxury they could not afford. His long,quick hands remained expressive of the generous man he had once been.
    “They do.”
    Fabbro Bombelli picked up the glass he’d perched on his generous belly and swirled it under his curlicue nose, looking sideways at Vettori. For every inch Fabbro had gained around the middle, his old partner had contracted. Some great unseen weight seemed to hang from the tape around Vettori’s shoulders, though it was not years but the manner in which he had spent them, curved over the rack, that had left him stooped in obeisance to the world, his head bowed so low that wearing a young man’s neat beard looked like an old man’s vanity. His loom jerked his limbs in tandem with its creaking parts, like a tired old puppet made to dance.
    In the last decade demand had fallen until Vettori could no longer afford to employ carders and dyers—though still he wove, believing it the last thing he could do competently. He had once won his Woolsmen’s respect by arguing on their behalf with the Signoria, and he still saw himself as the Small People’s advocate, but talk that had once reflected healthy self-respect had become shrill, self-pitying. Years of defeat were stretching him thinner than the old thread he wove.
    “You’re really going to ask him?” Vettori asked.
    “Won’t be the first time I’ve asked.”
    “Or the first time he’s said no.”
    “And I keep asking. What’s the worst he can do?” said Fabbro, running fingers through a beard as bright as white smoke. It separated out into two pluming cones, mirrored by the cloudy scuff encircling his