The sun hung low over Oakhaven, casting long, amber shadows across a landscape that had fundamentally transformed in a matter of weeks. For Evelina, the past month had been a whirlwind of architectural drafts, chemical equations and the kind of physical exhaustion that left no room for the wandering of the mind.
Or so she told herself.
Every time her thoughts drifted toward a certain silver-eyed guy or the phantom sensation of a thumb brushing her forehead, she would immediately dive back into her work. She had buried herself in work, pushing her body through rigorous morning exercises and her mind through the work of industrialization. It was her safe place against the "butterflies" she refused to acknowledge.
The most significant change was the presence of the Dwarfs. When Flint had returned from the mountains, he hadn't come with just a few assistants. He had marched into the village with fifty barrel-chested, soot-stained smiths.
