Three years old.
If being a baby was a prison of stillness, being a toddler was a prison of eyes. I had legs now—strong, chubby legs that could carry me across the room fast enough to surprise the cat. I had hands that could grip, stack, and throw. I had words, carefully chosen to sound simple, that let me ask for food without screaming.
But I also had a shadow.
Miren watched me like a hawk circling a field mouse. Toren watched me like a guard at a gate. Ever since the day I pointed at the broken hinge, the house had lived under a silent rule: Ren is different, so Ren must be watched.
I had learned my lesson. I played the part. I built crooked towers with my wooden blocks and clapped when they fell over. I chased dust motes. I hugged Miren's leg and said "Mama" with just the right amount of slobber.
But when they weren't looking, I worked.
The main room of our house changed when the sun came up. By night, it was where we ate and slept. By day, when Toren was out walking the village wall or hunting in the woods, Miren turned the kitchen table into her workshop.
Today, the air in the house was thick and heavy. It smelled of sulfur, crushed mint, and something sharp that tasted like metal on my tongue.
Miren was worried.
I sat on the floor near the fire, pretending to build a castle. In reality, I was testing how high I could stack the blocks before they tipped, feeling the balance of the wood. But my eyes were on my mother.
Miren stood over the iron stove. She had set up a mess of glass bottles and copper pipes. It looked like a nest made of shiny metal. A copper tube curled up from a boiling flask into a jar of river water to cool it down.
The flask was full of black sludge. Ghost-Root, I guessed. I'd seen her trade three baskets of eggs for it last week. It was strong magic, but cooking it was dangerous. If it got too hot, it would turn to rock and shatter the glass. If it got too cold, it would spoil.
The problem was the fire.
To keep the heat exactly right, Miren had to pump a leather bellows with her foot, feeding air to the coals. At the same time, she had to stir the sludge so it didn't stick, and she had to keep changing the cooling water.
She needed three hands. She had two.
Hiss. Pump. Clink. Splash.
The rhythm was messy.
"Stay back, Ren," Miren warned, her voice tight. Sweat was sticking her hair to her forehead. The Silver Seam around her—the threads of magic I saw everywhere—was shaking, vibrating with her stress. "Mama is doing dangerous work."
"Block," I said happily, stacking another cube.
I watched her foot. She was getting tired. The bellows was old and the leather was cracked. Every time she stepped down, it pushed air into the coals, making the fire jump. But when she lifted her foot, the seal wasn't tight. The bellows sucked air back from the fire, pulling smoke and ash into the tube and making the fire choke.
It was broken. Not broken like snapped, but broken like it wasn't working right.
Because it was sucking smoke back in, she had to pump twice as hard to keep the heat up. That meant she was forgetting to stir. The black sludge in the flask was starting to bubble hard.
Unsafe, my gut whispered.
I saw the Silver Seam around the flask turn a jagged, angry red. The magic inside the root was getting angry. If she didn't smooth out the heat, the flask was going to blow.
I looked at my blocks. They were simple cubes of soft pine Toren had carved.
I looked at the table. Miren had left her small cutting knife near the edge, forgotten while she poured water.
I looked back at Miren. Her back was to me. She was muttering a curse under her breath—harsh words from the Sump that she never used when she thought I was listening.
I can fix this, I thought. But I have to be fast.
If I helped, I risked showing them who I was again. I risked the scared look Toren gave me. But if I didn't, Miren was going to get a face full of boiling oil and glass.
It wasn't a choice. It was just math.
I waited for the rhythm. Pump. Stir. Splash.
Miren turned to the water bucket, lifting a heavy scoop to refill the cooling jar.
I moved.
Three years of practice paid off. I didn't waddle; I scrambled. I reached the table, stood on my tiptoes, and grabbed the knife. It was sharp, the steel cold against my small fingers.
I ran back to my blocks, hiding the knife under my shirt.
Miren turned back, dumping the water. She hadn't seen me.
Now came the hard part.
I sat with my back to the room, hunched over my "castle." I took one of the wooden blocks. I needed a gate. A simple door that let air go out but stopped it from coming back in.
I couldn't build anything fancy. But I could build a flapper.
I used the knife. My hands were small, my grip weak, but I had the Sight. I didn't just hack at the wood; I saw the grain. I saw where it would split.
Slice.
I shaved a thin slice of wood off another block. This would be the door.
Dig.
I took the main block and dug a hole through the center. It was rough work, splintery, but the hole went through. Then, I carved a little shelf on one side.
I put the thin slice over the hole, pinning it with a tiny splinter of wood I wedged into the corner.
It was ugly. It was rough. It was the best thing a toddler had ever built.
When air pushed from one side, the little door would open. When air tried to suck back, the door would slam shut against the shelf, sealing the hole.
One way only. No smoke coming back.
I wiped the woodchips from my lap, hiding them under the rug. I slipped the knife back into my pants—dangerous, I know, but I couldn't leave it out.
"Damn it," Miren hissed.
The fire was dying. The bellows had sucked in too much smoke. The sludge in the flask was turning grey. She was losing it.
"Come on," she gritted out, stomping her leg. The bellows wheezed like a sick lung.
She was panicking. The rhythm was gone.
I stood up. I held my wooden block in my hand. It looked like a toy.
I walked over to the stove.
"Ren! Back!" Miren snapped, not looking at me. She was staring at the flask.
I didn't go back. I went to the hole on the bellows where it sucked in air—a simple leather mouth near the floor.
I waited for her to lift her foot. The mouth opened, sucking air.
I jammed my wooden block into the hole.
It was a tight fit. I had guessed the size from across the room, and I had to shove it with the heel of my hand.
Thud.
It stuck.
Miren stomped down on the bellows.
Whoosh.
The air shot into the fire. The coals flared, bright and hot.
She lifted her foot.
Usually, this was when the bellows wheezed, sucking ash back.
Click.
My little wooden door slammed shut. The suction was cut off instantly. The bellows only pulled air from the room, not the fire.
Miren stomped again.
Whoosh.
More air. Stronger push. No loss.
She lifted. Click.
She stomped. Whoosh.
The sound changed instantly. Instead of a desperate, gasping struggle, the airflow became a steady, powerful beat. The fire roared to life, turning a clean, steady orange.
The grey sludge in the flask bubbled, then cleared, turning a bright, clear gold. The oil was saving.
Miren froze.
She stopped stirring. She stared at the flask, then down at the bellows. She felt the difference. She felt the pedal get firmer under her foot. It was working better.
She looked at the air hole. She saw the wooden block jammed there, with its crude little door clicking back and forth like a heartbeat.
She looked at me.
I was standing right there, hands behind my back, trying to look like I was just watching the shiny copper.
"Block!" I said helpfully.
Miren didn't smile.
She carefully moved the flask off the fire, setting it on a rack to cool. The danger was over. The oil was safe.
Then she knelt down. She ignored the expensive oil on the table. She looked at the wooden block. She reached out and touched the tiny flap I had carved. She pushed it open. She let it snap shut.
She understood.
Miren wasn't a builder, but she knew how things flowed. She knew pressure. She realized, right then, that her three-year-old son had just fixed a machine with a toy.
She turned her head slowly to look at me. Her eyes were wide, just like Toren's had been that day with the hinge. But where Toren's eyes had been scared of me, Miren's were scared for me.
"Ren," she whispered. She reached out and grabbed my shoulders. Her grip was tight. "Did you make this?"
I waited. I wanted to play dumb. Ba? What block?
But the block was right there. And the knife... well, the knife was still in my pants, cold against my skin.
I nodded. Once.
Miren closed her eyes. She let out a shaky breath.
"Where did you get the knife, Ren?"
I pulled the knife out and handed it to her, handle first.
She took it. She set it on the floor, far away. Then she pulled me into a hug that squeezed the air out of me. She smelled of smoke and the sweet, heavy scent of the root oil.
"You are too smart," she whispered into my hair. "You are too smart, little bird. And the world eats smart things."
She pulled back, holding me at arm's length. Her face was serious. The warm smile was gone.
"Listen to me, Ren. Look at Mama."
I looked at her. Her aura—the golden light of her soul—was shaking.
"You cannot do this when people are watching," she said. Her voice was low, hard. "Not Toren. Not the neighbors. Not the Elders. Do you understand?"
"Why?" I asked. My voice was small, but the question was big.
Miren looked at the door, making sure it was locked.
"Because people fear what they don't understand," she said. "They see a problem, they struggle. That is how it is. If you fix it... if you fix it too easy, they don't think you're clever. They think you're dangerous."
She pointed to the block in the bellows.
"This is Sump thinking," she said. "Making a machine do work it wasn't built to do. That is my blood. But out here... out here, they burn people for less than this."
I stared at her. They burn people.
I thought of the Silver Seam. I thought of the magic I saw everywhere. I thought this was a world of wonders. But Miren's eyes told me the truth. This was a world where being different got you killed.
"Hide it," Miren whispered. "Be smart inside. Be my little boy outside. Can you do that?"
I nodded. "Hide."
"Good."
She stood up. She walked to the bellows and yanked my block out. She tossed it into the fire.
I watched my first invention burn. The pine caught fast, the little door curling into ash.
"Go play with your blocks, Ren," Miren said, her voice sounding fake-happy. "Build Mama a castle."
I walked back to my corner. I sat down. I picked up a block.
My heart was beating fast. The Hollow in my chest pulsed, feeding on the fear in my blood.
I looked at the fire eating my valve.
Miren was right. Toren was afraid of the monster under the crib. Miren was afraid of the man in the high chair.
I built a castle. I made it tall and crooked and ready to fall. I knocked it over and laughed, a loud, clumsy, toddler laugh.
"Boom!" I shouted.
Miren smiled at me from the table, but her eyes were sad. She was bottling the oil, her hands steady, but she kept looking back at me.
I knew then that my mask had cracked. My parents knew. They didn't know what I was—a soul from another world—but they knew I wasn't just a child.
I picked up another block. I didn't carve it. I just held it.
Fine, I thought. I'll hide. I'll be the fool. I'll be the child.
But as I watched the Silver Seam drift through the room, thicker now near the finished potion, I made a promise to myself.
I would hide the builder. I would hide the scholar. But I wouldn't stop building. I would just build things that no one could see.
I closed my eyes and reached out with the Hollow, sipping a little bit of heat from the fire.
The lesson was learned.
Being smart is a secret. Staying alive is a show.
I clapped my hands and reached for another block.
"Block!" I yelled.
And for the first time, the word tasted like a lie.