Chapter 9: The First Arch
For the next six months, Victoria lived in the loft above the stone-cutting shop.
Her daily routine was stripped of every vestige of luxury. She woke at five o’clock, helped Caleb stoke the coal forge to dress the quarry chisels, and spent eight hours a day on the yard floor learning the fundamental geometry of classical masonry.
Her hands blistered, tore, and slowly hardened into the tough, resilient hands of a craftswoman.
She learned how to swing a stone pitching tool, knocking the rough edges from granite blocks with decisive, confident blows. She learned to calculate the load distribution of semicircular barrel vaults, discovering that true architectural beauty comes from the perfect balance of opposing forces.
Marcus, the young apprentice whose family had been displaced by Julian’s financial schemes in Bridgeport, worked beside her at the central drafting bench.
He did not treat her with bitterness. When Victoria struggled to lift a fifty-pound keystone into the wooden centering frame, Marcus reached out, bracing the stone with his strong arms until she could tap the wooden wedges into place.
""Good fit, Victoria,"" Marcus smiled, wiping sweat from his brow. ""That stone isn't going anywhere.""
Victoria looked at the interlocking granite blocks, feeling a deep, profound joy that no society gala or private equity bonus had ever given her.
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She was no longer an observer of someone else's performance; she was a builder shaping the earth with her own hands.
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