The candy crafters filed into the castle, filling the workshop with the echoes of footsteps, the clearing of throats, and the rustling of clothes. Despite their presence, Anne was calm, and the fairies didn’t seem to be particularly bothered.
Wearing their usual cheerful expressions, the fairies scooped silver sugar from the barrels and carried it over to their workbenches.
“Hey, where are the buckets of cold water?” Allele asked in a loud voice.
From the other side of the workshop, Noah raised his head. “There are two over here!” he answered.
“Well, we don’t have any.”
Mithril Lid Pod hopped nimbly up on top of a workbench and spun around, looking about the room. “That’s because they need two barrels of cold water over there,” he said. “Maybe we should fill another barrel? Hey, Riesis, Schulei, come help me draw some cold water.”
Mithril jumped from the workbench over to an empty barrel and waved over two fairies, who ran over to help him.
The crafters who had followed Hugh into the workshop looked around with surprise as the fairies briskly started their work.
Hugh grinned and stood against the wall. “Go on, feel free to observe,” he said.
However, the candy crafters remained huddled by the wall with Hugh, as if held there by some unseen force.
It made sense. Wandering aimlessly around a workshop where people were in the middle of producing sugar candy would disturb their process. These visitors were candy crafters themselves, so they knew it was best to stay out of the way.
Anne looked on happily.
This is a fine workshop we have here.
Despite their prejudice, the crafters had nonetheless tried to stay out of the fairies’ way. That was because they recognized the fairies’ movements as those of candy crafters.
Jonas was standing at the farthest end of the group. He watched the fairies go about their work with wide eyes. Anne quickly approached him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Jonas, it’s been a while.”
He seemed surprised as he turned, and when he saw Anne’s face, he grimaced. “Sticking your nose into some strange business once again, huh? Incredible.”
“You’re as rude as ever, I see.”
“Unlike you, I’ve settled into my training instead of running around like crazy. I’ve even gotten the knack of using a spindle.”
He sounded standoffish, but not rough or malicious. That was enough to tell Anne he was making an earnest effort to pursue an honest path. It gladdened her heart.
“Have you? Well, good for you.”
Anne smiled, and Jonas looked troubled.
“What’s with you? You’re smirking.”
“I’m just happy.”
Jonas blushed a little and looked away in a huff. “How about you quit slacking off and do your job?”
“Sure.” With a wry smile, Anne went back to her work.
Noah, Allele, and the others were beginning to knead their silver sugar. They added cold water and turned the sugar many times, using exactly the right amount of force. The sugar very quickly grew lustrous. Then they moved it to the top of a workbench and continued kneading.
After they saw that all the fairies had started working, Anne, Keith, and Kat each picked up two vials of colored powder. Anne had red and yellow. Keith had blue and red. Kat had yellow and blue.
“We all remember our main colors, right?” Kat confirmed before the three of them spread out across the room.
“Yes. I’m red,” Anne replied.
“And I’m blue,” Keith answered.
Kat nodded and adjusted his grip on the vial of yellow-colored powder in his right hand. “And this one here’s mine. Let’s keep a close eye on one another’s colors.”
“Be careful about the boundaries between them,” Anne said.
Keith nodded. “Let’s go. The fairies work fast.”
Keith, Anne, and Kat scattered around the workshop.
When the fairies finished scooping more silver sugar from the barrels and started to knead it, Anne approached.
“I’m going to add some color, okay?”
At that, the first fairy stopped her kneading. Anne sprinkled the right amount of red-colored powder into the dough. When the fairy started kneading again, the pure-white silver sugar quickly turned red.
“That’s a nice color. Good job. Continue.”
Anne went over to where another fairy had started kneading on another workbench and got him to pause in the same way. She added red and just a little bit of yellow-colored powder to his sugar. Then she directed him to keep kneading.
Like honeybees moving from flower to flower in search of nectar, Anne, Keith, and Kat circulated around the room and added color to all the silver sugar dough.
The three of them each kept an eye on the other two, making slight adjustments to the amounts of powder they added as they went.
“How do you all decide on the colors?” one of the fairies asked with astonished admiration when Anne approached with her vials of powder.
“How? We just look at the shades.”
“You and the other two are coordinating your colors, right?”
“We look at one another’s colors and adjust our own. It’s a matter of— How do I put it…? Perception and experience.”
However, it wasn’t as if just anyone could do it with perception and experience alone. It worked because Anne was cooperating with Keith and Kat. They were all first-rate crafters, and a novice could never have imitated the way they fine-tuned their colors. Their results were balanced, and the changes in hue were smooth and even. Though straightforward, it was difficult to achieve. But they were performing the task easily.
Anne went back to focusing on her colors. If she made an error, then so would the other two who were taking her work into account.
I don’t have to knead the silver sugar or shape it into anything.
This time, those tasks belonged to the fairies. In order to help them as much as possible, Anne and the others were concentrating on making the colors. However, this alone would completely change the impression their results made on the crafters.
This color coordination is the key.
The three of them kept working while checking the others’ colors. Anne looked at what the other two were making, then nodded.
Hugh was watching them with apparent amusement. His expression said he was eager to see what they could do.
The fairies added cold water into the colored sugar, then kept kneading doughs of various colors and shades.
“They’re fast kneaders.” Anne overheard Grant, the head crafter from the Mercury Workshop, whispering to Killean, who was standing beside him.
“Sure, though I expected as much,” Killean said with a smile, his monocle reflecting the light.
Stella was leaning wearily against the wall, looking bored, as if he was watching something entirely mundane.
Marcus Radcliffe frowned and crossed his arms as he intently followed the fairies’ movements with his eyes. The majority of the other crafters were doing much the same as Marcus—just standing there, watching the fairies work. Only Jonas kept biting his lip with an impatient expression.
After a little while, Marcus snorted. “They’re very well trained, when it comes to kneading…”
As soon as he spoke, the fairies who had finished with their kneading took out their spindles.
Marcus’s eyes opened wide. He looked startled. Anne could tell that the crafters were all astir.
“They’re gonna do that?”
“No way!”
Noah was first. He pretended not to hear the crafters’ whispering as he began the specialized kneading technique, stretching the sugar dough out long and doubling it over. The silver sugar in his hands had the same light-purple color as his hair.
Over and over again, he stretched the sugar, folded it in half, and stretched it again. As he repeated that process, fine lines began to appear on the surface of the silver sugar, making it look as if he was working with a bundle of silk threads.
Noah dipped his fingers into some oil atop his workbench, pressed from the seeds of sugar apples. Then with little tugs, like he was twisting paper into a string, he pulled a strand of silver sugar dough out from the edge and wound it around his spindle, then gave the spindle a little spin.
It twirled around and around. Smoothly, the light-purple silver sugar became thread that streamed through Noah’s fingers, twining around the spindle.
Quiet cheers arose from the crafters.
Then, as if to rival Noah, Allele also took up his spindle. The silver sugar he had kneaded was indigo blue, like his hair. He drew out a bit of silver sugar, wrapped the tip around the spindle, and gave it a spin as well.
Here and there around the room, the fairies were each picking up their spindles. Out of the nineteen fairies, half of them had learned this technique.
Throughout the workshop, fairies were spinning silver sugar threads. There was no strain in their movements, and it seemed as if their cold hands had been made to do this job.
“Anne, I’m finished.”
Noah ran up to Anne with his spindle in hand, fully wound with light-purple threads of silver sugar.
“Thank you. You can go and spin another color.”