That Precious Sparkle...Akatsuki's older brother gives Akari her first commission, hiring her to transport some glassware by gondola. At the glassmaker's workshop, she overhears a tourist disparaging Neo-Venezian glassware as an inferior copy of Venetian glass—just as Neo-Venezia is an imitation Venice. The apprentice glassmaker supervising the cargo rudely refuses to let Akari help carry it. As Akari rows she tells him the glass is beautiful and admires how it sparkles in many colors. The apprentice complains that some people judge purely on the basis of tradition, which for glassmakers was broken between the sinking of Venice and the building of Neo-Venezia...