Bert’s hammer rose and fell in small, precise taps. The workshop was quiet, save for the tiny chime of metal against metal. He had tried to make more of those ‘telescopic rods’ Marco showed him.

  They were a novelty, and even the more established city craftsmen didn’t recognize the design.

  And for good reason. They required a lot of patience and precision, always catching on one error or another. So close, but not perfect.

  He leaned closer, holding the smallest tube up to the light. If he shaved the inner lip by just—

  The door flew open, and Bert turned around to berate the rude customer.

  Sophie slipped inside and closed it behind her. She didn’t say a word. She crossed the room, sank into the corner by the sacks of coal, and pulled her knees in. Her breath was uneven. It took him a second to realize she was crying.

  Bert paused. “Sophie?” His voice barely carried.

  She shook her head, face buried.

  He set his work aside and slowly moved up to her. He sat on the floor beside her and gently placed an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, her tears wetting his sleeve.

  “I can’t deal with this!” She spasmed.

  They stayed like that for a while, with Bert caressing her head. Long enough for her breathing to soften, though it still hitched every few breaths.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  Her reddened eyes met his. “There were too many people again,” she said, voice shaking. “I couldn’t listen to them all. H-Hito was helping me manage but–”

  Her hands tightened around her knees.

  “He was taking bribes!” she shouted. “And I didn’t see it. I didn’t see any of it until today.”

  Bert’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed soft. “That’s… a hard thing to learn.”

  “I trusted him.” She took a ragged breath. “I don’t even know how long this has been happening. And he—” Her voice broke again, frustration more than sorrow. “Now everyone who comes to me must think I’ll exploit them too.”

  Bert didn’t answer right away. He just held her a little closer.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” she asked. “He was the one who fudged my and Marco’s records from the census. What if I anger him and he tells on us?”

  Bert let out a slow breath.

  “This is not an easy one,” he admitted. “Have you talked to him yet?”

  “No.” Sophie stared at the floor, biting her lip. “I said I’m ill and ran away.”

  “That might be for the best for now.”

  “I just hate this so much.” She shook with every word.

  Silence descended upon them again, as heavy memories weighed on Bert’s heart.

  “There once was a day that knights were culling monsters around the village I was born in.” He spoke slowly, his tone somber. “They did horrible things.”

  “That should never be allowed.” Sophie ceded through her teeth, as fresh tears streamed.

  “My father said the same. He gathered the men from our village–” Bert held her tighter as words caught in his throat. “And that was the last time I spoke to him.”

  She leaned into him harder. Her warmth was calming.

  Bert sighed as he cradled her. “Please, don’t put yourself in danger.”

  The forge smoldered quietly behind them. The half-finished rods lay untouched on the workbench, but neither of them moved to stand.

  Sophie set the clay pot down on the windowsill, steadying it with both hands. The new house smelled of dust, the echoes of footsteps still hollow on the wooden floor. Sunlight spilled in through wide windows, brighter than at their old place.

  Aura stood in the center of the main room, her sleeves rolled up, hair tied back, smiling brightly.

  “Look at this space,” she said, turning slowly. “You’ll have your own rooms… and the garden! How beautiful is that?”

  “I like it a lot, too.” Marco nodded, leaning his shoulder against the doorway. “Plenty of space to practice.”

  Sophie tried to smile back, but her face felt stiff. Her arms ached from carrying boxes. Her chest ached from everything else.

  She hadn’t confronted Hito yet.

  She didn’t know how to.

  Just the thought of it screamed danger through her head.

  Bert stepped in, holding the last crate. He set it down near the wall and began untying the rope around it.

  “Come on Bert, that one goes in the kitchen,” Aura said, walking over. “Not here.”

  Bert stopped, hands still on the knot. “How can I know where it goes if you never tell me anything?”

  The room stilled for a moment.

  Aura exhaled, tired already. “I told you yesterday—”

  “No,” Bert cut in. “You tell me nothing. That’s the problem.”

  Sophie felt her fingers grip her sleeves.

  Aura’s smile had dropped entirely now.

  “How long did you think it would take me to notice, Aura?” Bert’s voice was quiet, but sharp. “That you started going to the academy?”

  “If you showed up at home more often, you’d know that and more” Aura didn’t flinch. “My looks have changed a lot and I’ve been careful. No teacher would recognize me.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “And if you stumbled upon the headmaster?” Bert’s voice rose. “Do you think he forgot you too?”

  Marco rubbed his forehead once, a small, weary motion. Then he pushed himself off the doorframe and turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Sophie’s voice came out before she thought.

  “Sorry. I don’t have time for this.” He looked back, his face scrunched up.

  The door shut behind him.

  Aura and Bert’s voices rose, overlapping now. They didn’t even notice Marco had left. Sophie tried to remain still, shaking like a leaf.

  Listening and waiting.

  Her heart felt too tight for her chest.

  Minutes later, their fight only got worse. Circling the same wounds.

  “Stop!” The word broke out of her before she realized she was shouting. “Both of you just—stop.”

  Aura and Bert froze mid-word.

  Sophie’s voice shook, but she didn’t try to steady it.

  “This is too much for me,” she said, breath catching. “None of us can sleep at night anymore, everyone is pretending to be fine, and I’m just so lost in all of that.”

  Her vision blurred for a moment and tears streamed down her face.

  “We need to sit down and talk. But not like this.”

  Bert’s face fell first. The anger drained out of him all at once.

  “If it’s about that thing with Hito,” he said quietly, “I’ll help you however I can. You know that. We just… have things we need to sort with Aura.”

  Aura turned to Sophie quickly. “What thing with Hito?”

  “It’s not just that!” Sophie’s voice came loud. “It’s everything. Everything is breaking apart, there might even be a war soon and you don’t see any of it.”

  The silence that followed was heavy, but it wasn’t angry anymore.

  “I’m… sorry, Sophie. Some things we have to talk about ourselves, but I promise you we will.” Bert nodded, slowly. “Just give me some time to calm down.”

  Aura’s expression softened too. “I’m sorry too.”

  Bert took a deep breath and stepped outside, gently closing the door.

  “Will the two of you really talk?” Sophie asked, her voice laced with hope.

  “I’m sure we’ll try.” Aura’s eyes turned to the floor. “But it’s hard. Some things, I don’t know how to say.”

  “Can’t you just trust him?” Sophie shuddered. “Isn’t that what you said families do?”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust Bert but you know how he is,” Aura said, her voice low. “Each time I tried to tell him more about what Marco really did, he was already on the verge of snapping.”

  “He’s not like that with me.”

  Aura’s eyes wavered, unsure, tired.

  “I want to tell him everything. But I need to understand Marco’s condition first. If I say it now… I don’t know what Bert will do.”

  The street outside was already busy, people moving in slow currents around one another, voices blending into a low, indistinct hum. David stepped into it and immediately regretted leaving the house.

  He should have stayed. Sophie had wanted him to. Ualani could wait for him, after all.

  But the thought of standing there while they argued felt… suffocating. And now the noise pressed in from every direction.

  A cart rolled past, someone shouted prices. Too many shapes, too many faces to keep track of.

  He felt as if someone was watching him. And there were way too many people who could be keen on that.

  He pulled his elbows in, making himself smaller, head dipping slightly. If someone tried grabbing him here, he couldn’t even use the claws. Not without everyone seeing.

  A voice laughed behind him and his pulse kicked. He stepped out of the flow of footsteps and turned down a narrower street. Only then did he breathe out.

  He rubbed his sweaty palms against his trousers, almost expecting them to leave bloody trails like they so commonly did.

  Ualani’s voice rang out in his head. I thought you didn’t care.

  It would be truly delusional to say he did not. But what was he supposed to do?

  If he didn’t learn healing from her, and then later down the line, Aura died in his helpless hands, could he ever forgive himself?

  Would he want to?

  He didn’t even know if Ualani really was a victim, or some insidious mastermind.

  David stopped as he took a deep, calming breath.

  He slowly shook his head.

  It wasn’t his duty to save the world. He wasn’t a lord or a soldier or whatever counted as a hero in this world. It was just a few months ago when he could barely keep himself alive.

  When I’m stronger… When I know more… I’ll be able to make such choices.

  But that was not the day yet.

  He stepped forward again. His steps, steadier now, carried him toward the marble gates of the academy.

  Aura slowly set her cup down. She brewed the tea when she came back from work, but it already went cold. She stared out the window and into the garden. Their garden, though it didn’t bring as much joy in this moment.

  She couldn’t focus on anything else, other than the argument they had the day before.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Marco jogging down the road, a stack of parchment hugged to his chest.

  “Mom?” he called out as he entered, his breath quick. “Look what I have! I finally got the references about ‘essence’.”

  He spread the folio across the table with both hands, as if laying out a small treasure hoard. “There’s so many of them! We could resume our work even today!”

  “That’s great, sweetie,” Aura tried to smile.

  She pulled the papers closer and let her eyes move over the lines. The signs were smudged, but legible. No matter how she tried, she just couldn’t feel excited about it.

  “Marco,” she said finally, softly. “It’s just translation work, right? Let’s work from home for a while.”

  He tilted his head, eyes still on the pages. “Here? But we have our laboratory. And if we find something out, we can test it immediately. Isn’t it better to have a special space for work?”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Aura said. “I just… I think I shouldn’t enter the academy building anymore.”

  His eyes darted around. “Why?”

  “I haven’t thought it through well enough,” she said. “If, by chance, we stumbled into someone I knew really well… the headmaster, for example.... Romuald doesn’t forget people.”

  “I understand,” Marco’s shoulders slackened a little. “Was he your teacher?”

  “Among others.” Aura nodded once, taking a sip of her cold tea.

  “Could you tell me more about your past?” He looked at her properly then, not at the pages. “We never really talked about it, and now that I am surrounded by nobles…”

  “It’s a hard secret to keep,” she said, as she caressed his cheek. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  He nodded immediately.

  “I was born to House Costellian,” Aura said, the name numbing her tongue. “One of the Council Houses–”

  She paused, as Marco’s eyes grew wide.

  “What?” Aura asked, her brows knitted together in confusion.”Have you heard that name before?”

  “I–” Marco stammered. “Is that a large family?”

  “Very.”

  “And if anyone recognized you, that would be a problem.”

  “Yes, a big one.” She sighed. “A life or death kind of problem.”

  He swayed on his feet, his eyes darting in every direction. When he finally stopped, he focused on the pages again, his lips inching upwards.

  “What are you thinking about?” Aura asked, worried.

  “Do you remember the friend I mentioned?”

  “The one you made that hairpin for?”

  “Yes, Diana.” Marco said as he squeezed the pages tight. “She might be my cousin, then.”

  Little Diana?

  Aura cradled her head with both her hands as memories of her siblings flashed behind her eyes. It was just their luck that the first friend Marco made was her.

  “Not a cousin, but an aunt.”

  “Huh? But she’s barely older than me.”

  “Your grandfather had a lot of children, Marco.” Aura shook her head in dismay. “It’s even more important I don’t set foot into the academy, then.”

  “Are you sure?” Marco tugged at her sleeve. “I feel like the two of you have a lot in common. Maybe you could help one another?”

  I’m sure we could, and that’s the problem.

  While her heart ached for her little sister, she had way too much to lose in that fight.

  “Bert was right,” Aura paused, taking a deep breath. “If our family comes first, I need to stop taking unnecessary risks.”