Glass and Ember
The first crack split the air at ten past four, and glassblower Maren Holloway heard it the way her father taught her: a single high note, the moment before everything breaks. Years later, she's built a quiet life far from the kiln that raised her, until a letter from lawyer Camille Reeve summons her home. Her mentor Soren Vance is dead. The studio is hers now, along with the debt that threatens to bury it. Without a major commission, the legacy Vance built will be sold for scrap. Her only lifeline is Tobias Brandt, the rival artist who makes glass that burns and bends every rule she once lived by. He doesn't want a piece for his gallery; he wants a partner, a collaboration from the fire up. But Tobias isn't the only one with designs on Maren's future. Vera Kowalski, a collector with old ties to the studio, offers a fortune in cash for the rights to every piece Maren will ever make. And Linnea Cho, the apprentice who stayed behind, has her own reasons to remain hidden in the shadows of the workshop. As autumn deepens and the kiln burns through its last reserves of fuel, Maren must choose: sign away her craft to save it, or trust the one man whose fire could either forge something new, or shatter her entirely.