For three days after the breakthrough, Theron did nothing.
Not nothing exactly. He kept going to work. He kept cataloging scrolls. He kept watching the training yard and taking notes. But he didn't practice magic. He didn't write in his main notebook. He just... thought.
He had a problem.
He'd proven that magic could be learned by anyone. At least, he'd proven it to himself. One experiment. One success. His own body, his own hands, his own mind producing visible fire without a drop of noble blood.
But proof that convinced only him wasn't proof at all.
He needed someone else to do it.
The idea terrified him.
Teaching someone meant trusting them. Trusting them not to tell anyone. Not to get drunk and brag to friends. Not to panic when they realized what they were doing and run to a priest or a noble or anyone with authority.
If word got out that Theron was teaching magic to commoners, he wouldn't just lose his job. He'd lose his freedom. Or his life. The nobles and the temples took their monopoly on magic very seriously.
So the question wasn't whether to teach someone. It was who.
He watched Kallias for a week before he made up his mind.
It wasn't hard to watch him. They ate lunch together every day now. It had become routine — the two of them sitting at the same spot in the servants' courtyard, talking about nothing important while the rest of the household bustled around them.
Kallias was easy to be around. He didn't fill silence with meaningless chatter. He asked questions when he was curious and shut up when he wasn't. He laughed easily but not stupidly. And he was sharp — sharper than he let on.
Most importantly, he was angry.
Not loudly angry. Not the kind of anger that made people dangerous. The quiet kind. The kind that came from watching something unfair happen over and over and having no way to change it.
His family's story had done that to him. A successful merchant father, reduced to nothing by a political enemy with more power and fewer scruples. Everything taken. Status. Money. Dignity. Gone overnight, and no one with the authority to help them had bothered to try.
That was the kind of anger that understood why knowledge mattered. Why power mattered. Why the nobles' monopoly on magic wasn't just tradition — it was control.
The decision came on a Wednesday.
Lunch. The usual spot. Kallias was in one of his talking moods, which meant he was upset about something and processing it out loud.
"Aristophon's younger son broke his arm this morning," he said, tearing bread. "During training. Fell off a horse."
"Is he alright?"
"Oh, he'll be fine. They sent for a healing mage from the temple. Cost them fifty gold drachmas, probably. Man showed up within the hour, fixed the arm in ten minutes, left."
Kallias took a bite of cheese.
"You know what happens when one of us breaks a bone? We wait. We pray. We hope it heals right. If it doesn't, we live with it crooked for the rest of our lives."
He shrugged. "Fifty gold drachmas. That's what my bones are worth less than."
Theron said nothing. He was watching Kallias carefully.
"My father used to say something," Kallias continued. "He said the nobles don't actually know anything special. They just make sure nobody else can find out what they know. It's not talent. It's not divine gift. It's information. And they guard it like dragons guard gold."
He looked up and met Theron's eyes.
"Stupid, isn't it? Getting angry about it. It's just how things are."
Theron set his bread down.
His heart was beating faster. He'd been thinking about this moment for days, rehearsing what to say, how to say it. But now that it was here, all the careful words fell away and he just said it plainly.
"What if it wasn't just information?" he said. "What if it was a skill? Something that could be taught to anyone, if someone bothered to teach it?"
Kallias tilted his head. "Like what?"
"Like magic."
The word hung in the air between them.
Kallias stared at him. Then he laughed — a short, incredulous sound.
"You're joking."
"I'm not."
"Magic isn't a skill. It's a bloodline thing. Everyone knows —"
"Everyone believes that," Theron said. "But what if they're wrong?"
Kallias studied his face. The laughter faded. He could tell Theron wasn't joking.
"What are you saying?" he asked, quietly now.
Theron glanced around. No one was paying attention to them. The nearest servant was twenty paces away, scrubbing a pot.
"I'm saying I've been watching the nobles train for weeks," he said. "And I've been taking notes. And I've been testing things. On my own. In my room. At night."
He paused.
"And it works."
Kallias didn't say anything for a long time.
He looked at Theron like he was seeing him for the first time. Reassessing. Putting pieces together that hadn't connected before — the late nights, the distracted looks, the way Theron's eyes always drifted to the training yard.
"Show me," he said.
"I can't. Not here."
"Then where?"
"My room. Tonight. After dark."
Kallias nodded slowly. "And if you're lying? If this is some kind of —"
"I'm not lying." Theron held his gaze. "But if I'm wrong — if it doesn't work when I try to teach someone else — then we forget this conversation ever happened. You walk away. I keep experimenting on my own."
"And if you're right?"
Theron thought about that for a moment.
"If I'm right," he said, "then everything the nobles have told us about magic is a lie. And we can prove it."
Kallias was quiet for the rest of lunch.
They finished eating and went back to their separate jobs without another word. But when Theron glanced back at the courtyard from the library stairs, he saw Kallias watching him.
The gardener's expression was unreadable. But he nodded once, a small tight movement, and turned back to his work.
That evening, Theron sat in his room and prepared.
He laid out the circle. Drew it carefully. Measured the ratio. Marked the hand positions. Set the crystal on the floor in the center.
Then he sat on his bed and waited.
He thought about what would happen if this worked. If Kallias could learn even a fraction of what Theron had figured out, it would be the most important thing either of them had ever done. It would be proof — real, undeniable proof — that magic belonged to everyone.
And if it didn't work?
Then Theron had a lot more experimenting to do before he could figure out why.
Either way, tonight would tell him something.
A knock at the door. Three soft taps.
Theron stood up and opened it.
Kallias stood in the hallway, looking nervous and determined in equal measure.
"Alright," he said. "Show me."
End of Chapter Eleven