Sample: Fizzleburn — The Accidental Genius of Atheron

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 — The Dreamer of Geargrin Hollow

Blizzit Geargrin’s room woke up before he did.

Springs yawned in the cot. Gears clicked in the walls. A kettle somewhere to the left began to whistle of its own accord, which was worrying because Blizzit distinctly remembered not having filled it with water. A soft bluish glow pulsed from the ceiling. His “never go out nightlight” lived up to its name by refusing to go out, even during the day.

Blizzit sat up, hair making a sincere attempt at several directions at once. He pushed his goggles from his chin to his forehead. He wore them to sleep, because for Blizzit, the difference between “night” and “workshop” was philosophical at best. He squinted at the workbench tucked beneath the low stone arch of the room.

The self lighting lantern was still sneezing.

“Bless you,” he told it automatically.

The lantern responded by inhaling, wheezing, and puffing a cone of sparks that could have lit a tavern hearth. Luckily Blizzit’s mother had fitted every surface in his room with fireproofed felt. A sooty puff drifted up and wrote the word “ACHOO” in the air, one of the side effects of mixing a breath rune with a spark rune on a lantern lid.

“All right,” Blizzit said. He climbed out of bed and tripped over a stack of springs that had sworn they would remain stationary and then, at the last moment, decided not to. “We’ve narrowed the problem. The lantern works as long as it has a cold.”

He padded across the stone floor of Geargrin Hollow, the tunneled home his family had maintained for three generations. The Geargrins were respectable gnomes. They paid their tunnel dues, polished their door knobs on market day, and only blew up one roof between them. Even that had been at a festival where explosions were encouraged. Blizzit loved them dearly, especially because they tolerated him as if he were a particularly curious thunderstorm that had taken up residence in the house.

He prodded the lantern’s chimney with a brass pick. “If I add a drip of mint oil, you’ll clear right up.”

The lantern sniffed, truly sniffed, and went dim with relief. For three dignified seconds it behaved like an ordinary lamp. Then it sneezed so hard the top popped off, hit the ceiling, and clanged into a shelf of labeled jars: ground mallowroot, powdered shellstone, shaved copper, three varieties of “for later,” and a jar simply marked “do not.”

Blizzit lunged, caught the falling lid, and missed everything else. The jars tumbled into the air in graceful arcs that looked, for a breathless moment, as if they might all return to their places. They did not. Mallowroot dusted his hair. Shellstone pinged across the floor. The “do not” jar made a sound like laughter as it bounced and rolled under the bed.

“Morning!” Blizzit sang to the room, because saying it any other way would have felt dishonest. “Today is for greatness.”

A muffled voice called from the tunnel. “Is greatness the thing currently trying to burn the breakfast?”

“On my way, Mum!” Blizzit kicked his boots on, grabbed the nearest cleanish apron, and thumped into the corridor that led to the kitchen cavern. Geargrin Hollow wasn’t very large, but it had a lot of quirks. Every year or so someone discovered a side passage that had always been there but was forgotten about. The walls were warmly lit with imbued stones, the floor was swept, and the ceiling was just high enough for Blizzit’s father to stand proud without scraping his head.

“Your kettle,” his mother said, “is whistling in a key I associate with danger.”

“I think it’s practicing,” Blizzit said.

His father, a broad shouldered gnome with sensible eyebrows, folded the morning paper and cleared his throat. “Practicing for what, exactly?”

“Spontaneous excellence,” Blizzit said, because he felt that every day ought to include at least one audacious sentence. He took the kettle off the hob and set it on a trivet. The kettle hummed to itself, then sighed and went quiet as if scolded.

“How are you feeling about your application?” his mother asked, sliding a plate of crisped mushrooms and buttered bread in front of him. She had quick hands and quicker eyes, and a way of loving Blizzit that made him feel both safe and sharper.

Blizzit’s heart did a double tap. “Confident,” he said. “Adjacent to confident. Adjacent to the neighborhood of confident. All right, I haven’t posted it yet.”

His father’s sensible eyebrows rose. “The deadline is three days away.”

“That’s practically four if you count optimism,” Blizzit said.

His mother’s look served as both reply and prophecy. “Blizzit.”

“I’ll send it today,” he promised, then buttered his bread with a tool that was either a very small trowel or a very large spoon and decided it was both. “I just want it to be perfect.”

“Perfection is the sibling of never,” his father said, and sipped his tea.

Blizzit chewed. The word Arcanum spread like honey, hot across the back of his tongue, Arcanum of Dawnfire, the greatest academy of magic and science in the mountains beyond Havenmoor. Its towers caught the morning light first and sent it ringing down the valleys like bright bells. He wanted to be there so badly that sometimes his hands shook and he had to go fix something just to make the feeling bearable.

“I can do it,” he said to the butter, the table, the room, himself. “I just have to… demonstrate it on paper.” He winced at the thought of summing up his entire curiosity in eight neat paragraphs.

“Demonstrate it by not setting the kitchen on fire before lunch,” his mother said, and kissed his hairline.

Blizzit took the hint. After breakfast he retreated to his room, collected his scattered jars, coaxed the nightlight to power down with a lullaby he played on a two string gearharp, and faced the neat stack of parchment on his desk. The application questions were straightforward. Nothing in Blizzit’s life had prepared him for straightforward.

List your competencies. Describe a time you solved a problem using methodical reasoning. Explain why the Arcanum of Dawnfire should consider you for study in the following tracks: spell craft, alchemy, and applied mechanics.

He penned the first answer.

Competencies:

– curiosity (weaponized)

– resilience to heat, smoke, and disappointment

– excellent aim when catching falling lids

– rapid improvisation under conditions I almost certainly created myself

He frowned, chewed the end of the quill, and crossed out weaponized. He wrote more seriously beneath it: I can read three alphabets, solder a seam without warping the measure, inscribe a first tier warding rune (if not rushed), and assemble a gear train that will still be ticking a year later. He added: I can also admit when I don’t know a thing and ask someone who does.

That last line made him think of Professor Mentalbus.

Just thinking the name straightened Blizzit’s back. Mentalbus had a knack for arriving in precisely the way a day needed him, sometimes with an armful of scrolls and a lecture about the one missing step in a process. Other times with a bag of sweet buns and the quiet that settled around kind men who had lost and learned. He was known simply as Mentalbus, which to Blizzit had always sounded like a bell you heard before you could see the tower.

The bell, as if hearing itself invoked, chimed in the corridor outside. Literally, the household knocker was a little euphonium with a mouth, and when you pressed the button it played an agreeable note. Blizzit looked up. His mother’s delighted voice carried from the front tunnel.

“Blizzit! We have company.”

He thumped into the foyer nearly upside down with eagerness. Mentalbus stood under the lintel, dust on his boots, wind in his beard, the corners of his eyes crinkled as if someone had told him a good joke just out of earshot. He wore a professor’s long coat, the hem scorched in ways that suggested theory and practice had not always gotten along this week.

“My boy,” Mentalbus said, and Blizzit was twelve again for a heartbeat, tugged forward by the gravity of belonging. They embraced in a clatter of buckles and pens.

“We were just talking about you,” Blizzit said.

“Then I arrived at the proper moment,” Mentalbus replied. He set a satchel on the bench and from it drew, like a conjurer, three still warm buns fragrant with cinnamon. “For your mother’s kindness, your father’s patience, and your appetite for chaos.”

Blizzit’s father chuckled in the doorway and accepted the bun with the dignity of a man who had very often earned it.

They sat in the kitchen with tea that no longer hummed and watched the steam coil between them like a slow spell. For a while they spoke of small things like market gossip, a neighbor’s burrow that had sunk a few inches and thrown all the cupboards off level, and Mentalbus’s opinion about the new archivist at the Arcanum (“very tidy, which is admirable but possibly dangerous in large amounts”).

At last Mentalbus turned his gaze on Blizzit. The professor’s eyes had a way of making silence feel like an invitation instead of a test.

“I’m writing my application,” Blizzit blurted. “And… I don’t know how to say that I’m the kind of student they want when I am also the kind of student that knocks over his own sentences while trying to write them.”

Mentalbus smiled. “Do you love learning?”

“Yes.”

“Do you break things because you are careless, or because you are reaching?”

Blizzit looked at his hands, at the constellation of nicks and burns, at the way his fingers could not stop miming a gear’s rotation while his mind turned. “Because I am reaching,” he said softly.

“Then tell them,” Mentalbus said. “Any academy worth its tower wants students who reach. Rules exist not to prevent the reaching, but to keep the rafters on while you do.” He paused. “And Blizzit… the Arcanum is many things, but it is not perfect. It needs students who will ask, ‘Why not?’ and teachers who will answer, ‘Because we tried that and it bit us,’ and then try it again properly. If anyone gives you the chance to be that student, it should be us.”

Blizzit swallowed around a knot that wasn’t peril, exactly, but its more affectionate cousin. “What if they don’t?”

“Then you will keep reaching,” Mentalbus said, and his voice gentled. “And I will keep helping you find a better ladder.”

They spent the afternoon at the workbench. Mentalbus watched without hovering, corrected without scolding. When Blizzit reached for the “do not” jar, Mentalbus cleared his throat with such timing that Blizzit set it down and grabbed the “absolutely” jar instead. They tinkered a little and talked a lot. Together they coaxed the self lighting lantern into a state that could be described as “occasionally dignified.” It no longer sneezed, it harrumphed. Progress.

“Write the application now,” Mentalbus said as shadows lengthened in the tunnel. “Don’t let dawn find you with an unsent dream.”

So Blizzit wrote. He described the time he’d repaired the village mill’s jammed sluice using a fork, two buttons, and a length of wire, methodical reasoning under community pressure, and he described the night he’d stayed up in the mushroom cellar working out why condensate runes failed in damp air. His mantra of hypothesis, test, failure, repeat, repeat, repeat, success. He wrote about wanting to learn spell craft not to hurl fire but to wrap enchantments around machinery like careful cloth, about alchemy not to transmute gold but to find the temperaments of materials, about mechanics not to replace magic but to host it. He said the word host three times before noticing, then left it because that was honest too.

At the bottom he added the line that felt like a secret said into a friend’s ear: I won’t be the quietest student in your halls. But I will be the one who keeps trying until the door opens, and then I will prop it open for the next person.

He sanded the ink, rolled the sheets into a tight scroll, and sealed it with a dab of wax imprinted with the small gear that served as the family’s mark.

“How shall we send it?” his mother asked, arriving with a ribbon. “Courier? Rider? One of those new pneumatic tubes the dwarves are installing in town? Oh, don’t make that face, I know you want to ride in one.”

Blizzit grinned, guilty. “I do. But no. We’ll do it properly.”

Properly, in Geargrin Hollow, meant the old way. They climbed the front stairs to the hill’s lip, where the door opened onto the late afternoon and the world pitched away in green and gold. Havenmoor lay a valley over, roofs a glint. Overhead the air was in the business of becoming evening. A post perch stood to the right of the door, and on it sat a delivery owl of such elderly dignity that Blizzit always addressed him as Sir.

“Sir,” he said, bowing. “An errand, if you please.”

The owl blinked once, slowly, as if to say I have seen a great deal and you are part of it, unfortunately. Blizzit tied the scroll to the owl’s leg with the ribbon. The seal bore the tower sign of the Arcanum of Dawnfire, preprinted on the application wrapper. Something in his chest rang like a struck glass.

“To the Arcanum,” Blizzit whispered. “To the morning towers.”

The owl considered the wind, the sky, and the state of its joints, then spread its wings and launched. Blizzit and his parents watched until it was a black brushstroke against the bright, then until it was not a brushstroke at all, then until there was nothing left but the space it had drawn through.

“Done,” his father said, and set a hand on Blizzit’s shoulder.

“Done,” Blizzit echoed, and felt both lighter and like he had put a coin into a machine that would not stop until it had delivered an answer.

That night he lay awake in the not dark of his stubborn nightlight and listened to Geargrin Hollow’s gentle noises: a pipe ticking as it cooled, the soft grit of stone settling, the house breathing in the way all old places do when no one is trying to name it. He imagined the Arcanum’s great gates, etched with wards older than kingdoms; imagined their hinges lifting; imagined walking through. He clutched the goggles at his throat like a charm and promised himself that if the gates stayed shut, he would learn how hinges worked until he could teach the gates a better way to open.

In the morning he woke before the kettle did and surprised the house by beating it to a whistle. For three days, Blizzit was a model of patience, by his standards, which meant he checked the post perch every hour on the hour and, when the hour wasn’t moving quickly enough, built a small mechanical hour to chase the big one.

He pulled weeds for his mother. He fixed a neighbor’s sticky latch (he had designed it sticky on purpose, but the neighbor had not shared his sense of humor). He paid for a smashed jar at the apothecary with an earnest apology and a gear that chimed pleasantly when turned. He waited.

The letter arrived in rain.

Blizzit heard the knock, a polite thud from the perch, and skidded down the corridor in his socks. The seal flashed blue: the Arcanum’s tower sign. His hands were good hands; they only shook a little as he broke the wax.

We regret to inform you…

The words marched like a funeral procession. He read them twice because the first time he was certain he had misunderstood the grammar; he often missed small words in the middle of sentences when the big, bright ones clamored. But no, he had missed by a few points on the examination, and the cohort was full, and the Arcanum of Dawnfire encouraged him to try again in a year when he had acquired more study and perhaps fewer sparks.

His parents stood in the tunnel’s mouth, watching as if the letter had weight enough to tip him. He did not tip. He folded the parchment along its crease and slid it back into the wrapper as neatly as he could, because if he could not be admitted to the Arcanum today, he could at least be tidy.

“I’ll make tea,” his mother said, already moving. His father’s hand found his shoulder again and squeezed once.

Blizzit nodded. He went to his room. The lantern coughed once, softly, as if it knew. He set the letter on the workbench and stood in the middle of the floor and breathed. It hurt in the clean way a cold morning hurts when you first step outside. He unscrewed a housing from the clock on the wall and oiled the smallest gear. He put the housing back. He did nothing for a while except be a person in a room with a letter.

A second knock sounded on the perch.

Blizzit stared at the doorway, then at the letter, then at the doorway again, because the world rarely knocks twice in the same minute unless the world is doing a bit. He walked, did not run, did not tumble, walked, to the front. The rain had settled into a thoughtful mist. A new scroll waited in the tray, bearing the same tower seal, but this one had a second mark stamped beneath it: a small sigil he knew as well as his own name.

“Mentalbus,” he whispered.

He broke the wax with a thumb. The letter inside smelled faintly of cinnamon buns and pipe smoke. He read.

Blizzit Geargrin,

The examination measures many things, but not all of the things that matter. It did not measure how you stood in the mill’s sluice up to your knees in freezing water because you believed the town should have bread that week. It did not measure how you learned the shape of your mistakes without making them anyone else’s problem. It did not measure the way you keep reaching.

As such, and after consultation with the admissions circle, you are hereby invited to the Arcanum of Dawnfire on a probationary basis for the first term. You will attend introductory courses in spell craft, alchemy, and applied mechanics. You will follow safety protocols with priestly zeal. You will ask for help before the room turns interesting.

Bring your goggles.

— Professor Mentalbus

Blizzit’s breath went somewhere and came back changed. He laughed, and when he laughed he hiccupped, and when he hiccupped he knocked his goggles with his chin so they sprang up over his eyes and made the world a bright, round carnival. He wrenched them down and ran for the kitchen, letter in one hand like a sparkler that did not go out.

“Mum! Dad!”

They met him halfway and in the tangle of hugs and tears and what did it say and let me see the kettle hummed happily to itself and chose, for once, not to boil over.

That night the house of Geargrin Hollow did not sleep. Not because of fireworks because Blizzit, under the new rule of priestly zeal, refrained from any celebratory chemistry. His father, without ceremony, slipped a worn pocket watch into Blizzit’s palm.

“It runs a little fast,” his father said. “So you’ll always be almost on time.”

Blizzit held the watch like a it were an ancient artifact. “Thank you.”

He stood in his doorway before bed and looked at the room that had survived him and loved him anyway. On the bench the lantern sat straight backed and dignified and did not sneeze. The nightlight refused to dim, but he smiled at it and left it be; not everything needed fixing. He slipped under the blankets, goggles on the hook, letter under his pillow like a promise.

In the hours before dawn he woke once, certain he could hear something far away, a bell, perhaps, or the bright strike of sun on the Arcanum’s highest window. He lay awake and listened until the sound resolved itself into his own heart, which had learned a new rhythm: not faster, not slower, only steadier. In the morning he would set out for the towers.

And when he reached them, he would try not to make them interesting. He would try very hard.

But Blizzit Geargrin had always been a creature of sparks.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 — The Examination

The road to the Arcanum of Dawnfire curled along the mountainside like a bright wire, humming with morning. Blizzit Geargrin bounced in his seat on the wagon bench, goggles around his neck, satchel clutched to his chest as if the wind might try to borrow it. The sun struck the academy’s highest windows and scattered; light slid down the tower faces in ribbons until it pooled at the front gates.

“Breathe,” his father said, handling the reins with the poise of a gnome who had never been late for anything except his own naps.

“I am,” Blizzit said, and then realized he had not.

The gates stood open. Wards etched into the stone flared softly as travelers passed beneath, a polite acknowledgement rather than a challenge. Blizzit craned to see everything at once: banners on the inner walls, stonework studded with glyphs, students crossing the courtyards in groups with that quick purposeful stride people use when they know exactly where they are going (and Blizzit absolutely did not).

They left him at the drop court with his trunk and his courage. Hugs, a last thought pocket check, a father’s pocket watch pressed into his palm, running a little fast, on purpose, and then Blizzit was one small gnome among many hopeful faces.

A bell sounded, clear and steady. The courtyard quieted. An usher in a silver trimmed robe raised a staff; the gem at its tip shone with an even light that made everyone look briefly more honest.

“Applicants,” the usher called, “welcome to the Arcanum of Dawnfire. You will proceed to the Examination Halls in three cohorts. Today’s assessment includes Spell Craft, Alchemy, and Magical Devices. Follow instructions precisely. If you do not understand an instruction, ask. If you ignite, stop.”

There was a ripple of laughter. Blizzit caught it and tucked it into his coat like a good luck charm.

The Spell Craft Trial

They began in the South Hall, a room of white stone and careful air. Runic circles were painted on the floor in concentric rings, practice safe sigils worked into the walls. Supervisors watched from a gallery above, quills ready.

“Spell craft measures control,” said a woman with ink dark hair and a voice that carried. “Not flourish. You will cast Lumen Minor, a first tier illumination, then modulate it through three intensities without flicker. Steady breath. No substitutions.” Her eyes ticked to Blizzit as if she could sense he often substituted something for something else in the name of interesting.

He stepped to his circle. The chalk looked newly laid, clean as an oath. His hands knew the shape of the gesture; he’d practiced in the cellar until his mother threatened to cork him like a bottle. He closed his eyes, found the place in his chest where fear and fascination braided together, and spoke the word.

“Lumen.”

A pearl of light awakened in the air above his palm. It thrilled him every time, the way a word could become a thing you could almost hold. He breathed in, out, and kept the glow steady.

“Good,” murmured the proctor at his shoulder. “Modulate to reading strength.”

Blizzit pictured a page. The light softened, warm as a hearth. He smiled.

“Now reduce to ember.”

He pinched with forefinger and thumb, gentled it down until it was no bigger than a sugar grain. It held.

“Now brighten to signal.”

He let a little more intent through the gate.

The light considered his request, then decided, with the optimism of a lantern in a storm, that he meant flare. It leapt, harmless but sudden, to the intensity of sunlight in a jar. Students around him flinched. Someone cursed eloquently in Elvish. Blizzit yanked, the light bobbled, then dimmed too far, went out, came back, and flickered with the stubbornness of a candle in a corridor when you really need it not to.

“Control, applicant,” the proctor said mildly.

Blizzit steadied his breathing. He thought of the pocket watch ticking a little fast and decided to match it. Tick, breathe, glow. Tick, breathe, glow. The light settled, bright and even, a proper signal. He held it to the count of eight and let it go. No scorch marks. No screaming. A wholly reasonable success, except for the part where he’d almost given the class a sunburn.

The proctor made a neat mark on his slate. Not a frown, not a smile. Blizzit walked out of the circle with his pulse in his ears and the sense that he had been only barely persuasive to a very small star.

The Alchemy Trial

The alchemy hall smelled like citrus and cool stone. Copper alembics marched along benches, each gleaming as if it had been polished by a perfectionist with a grudge. Vials stood in ranks. Labels faced forward. Nothing here sneezed.

A stout professor with a scar along his cheek, Crimthorn, read Blizzit’s mind with a twinge. Then addressed the cohort from behind a demonstration table. “Alchemy measures process. You will brew a standard Clarity Draught in three stages. You will not improvise. You will not introduce unrelated materials. You will not taste anything.”

Someone near Blizzit quietly returned a tasting spoon to their pocket.

“Stage One,” Crimthorn said. “Water bath. Measure precisely.”

Blizzit loved measures. Measures were little truths. He lined the vials like soldiers, weighed powders until the balance’s tongue lay perfectly flat, set the flame low as a lullaby. The water whispered. He added mallowroot and shellstone in the sequence he’d memorized, stirring twice clockwise, once counter, keep the spoon low, don’t nick the glass. The mixture clouded, paled, cleared. Encouraging.

“Stage Two,” said Crimthorn, pacing. “Introduce the diluted citrus extract. Not the concentrated. Diluted.”

Two identical bottles waited side by side. Their labels were clear enough, but their glass was a little thicker on one than the other, and the droppers felt like siblings who swapped hats for fun. Blizzit checked, rechecked, and, carried by the momentum of being careful, reached for the wrong one.

A single, aristocratic drop slid into his brew. The mixture brightened in delight, then turned a pink so decisive it could have been a political position.

Blizzit froze. He had a half breath to choose between hiding, panicking, or reporting. He put his spoon down. “Professor,” he said, hand up. “I made an error.”

Crimthorn stopped beside him. His scar folded like a closing door. He peered into the beaker without touching it, sniffed, and snorted. “Concentrate instead of dilute. It happens. Why?”

“I… assumed because the glass was thicker the bottle was the bulk stock,” Blizzit confessed. “And then I trusted the assumption more than the label.”

Crimthorn’s mouth did something that wasn’t a smile but also wasn’t not a smile. “Alchemists who can say where they went wrong are rarer than the ones who never do. Neutralize with shellstone. Start Stage Two again, with the diluted extract. You have time.”

“Thank you,” Blizzit said, ears hot.

He adjusted. The next drop from the proper bottle behaved like a sensible citizen. The pink retreated. The brew cleared to a translucent winter green. By Stage Three, the cooling and the whisper rune traced in the condensation. His hands were steady again. He decanted to a flask. It rang when it hit the bench, just a tiny chime. He hoped that was acceptable and not an omen.

Crimthorn passed behind him, sniffed the flask, and marked his slate. “Clarity enough to read by,” he said. “Learn to read the label first.”

“Yes, Professor,” Blizzit said, and felt oddly proud of the sting.

The Devices Trial

The Devices Hall was Blizzit’s favorite kind of problem disguised as a room. Workbenches in aisles. Pegboards hung with neat rows of tools. Bins of components labeled in chalk: Wand Cores (low grade), Foci (glass), Conductive Filaments, Insulators (do not bend), Misc. (do not shake). On the far wall, an array of manufactured wands stood in stands like stiff backed students.

A proctor with hair like copper shavings addressed them. “Magical Devices measures your ability to apply principles to matter. You will do two tasks. First: recalibrate a misaligned practice wand so that it produces a stable spark on command word. Second: assemble a simple magic infused mechanism, a timed click lamp, from components provided. No external reagents.”

Blizzit’s grin threatened his ears. He put his hands behind his back to keep them from starting without him.

They passed him a practice wand. It was well made, but something in it sulked. When he spoke its word, it spat a spark two inches left of where he aimed.

“Diagnosis first,” he reminded himself. He set the wand on a padded cradle, unscrewed the cap, and slid the wood sleeve back to expose the interior: a narrow spine of bone, a filament coil, a pebble sized focus set in resin. The resin had bubbled in curing; the focus sat a hair off center, throwing the spark like a drunk archer.

He could have melted and reset it, but that would take time, and time was a thing exams measured with cruel accuracy. He considered shim stock, found a sleeve of wafer thin copper in the Do Not Steal drawer, and cut a crescent with the tiny shears. He slid it into the gap, reseated the focus, and tightened the cap a quarter turn past snug. Word. Spark, straight and bright. He tested three times at different angles. Solid.

“Next,” said the copper haired proctor, appearing like an intent thought. She made a small affirmative noise at the sight of the straight spark, then tapped the bench. “Click lamp.”

The kit contents were basic: a glass bulb, a coil of fine filament, a mica insulator, a spring, a low grade focus bead, barely magical, and a ratchet wheel with a tiny escapement. A schematic of the assembly lay on a slate to the right: clear as a nursery rhyme. Assemble the ratchet; mount the spring; seat the filament in the bulb; cage the focus bead so it would leak energy into the coil as the ratchet ticked; insulate. Set the timer with the winding key. Speak the word to arm.

Blizzit dry fit the parts, listening to how they wanted to go. The ratchet clicked agreeably. The spring nested. He seated the filament so it didn’t touch the glass, fixed the focus bead in its little cradle, and soldered the joints with a wand tip heater lent by the bench. It looked like a lamp. It looked like a cute lamp. He was in love.

He wound the key two turns. “Ignia,” he said.

The click lamp purred to life. The filament glowed to a soft pearly light. The ratchet ticked with polite confidence. For a perfect five seconds, the device was exactly the thing the schematic had promised.

Then Blizzit, because he was Blizzit, thought: What if it could glow brighter with a very small augmentation? Just a whisper. Just to show that I know how to blend disciplines. He reached to nudge the bead’s cage closer, half a hair, while the device was running.

The lamp brightened like a pleased cat, arched its back, metaphorically, and then the ratchet began to scoot. The escapement, nudged by the added feed, ticked faster. The lamp would still run its full time, but it would do so in something like twenty very enthusiastic seconds.

“Stop,” he told it, pleasantly. “No? All right. Plan B.”

He flicked the winding key in reverse a quarter turn. The ratchet calmed. The filament’s glow steadied. He looked up. The proctor’s eyebrows had climbed into the part of the air reserved for good gossip.

“Note,” she said to her slate, not unkindly, “self modifies after successful assembly.” Then, to him: “Do you often tune a running device?”

“It helps me hear it,” Blizzit said, then wished he’d said anything else.

“Mm. Result: functional.” She drew a line with brisk satisfaction. “Bench two. Practical wand calibration: competent. Mechanism assembly: effective, impulsive.”

“Understood,” Blizzit said, which was only partly true. He understood that his heart was trying to live in his throat and that his hands had not exploded, which was progress by any definition he’d used up to now.

They released the cohort to a waiting hall with benches and water jugs that refilled themselves. Students sat in clusters: the bright quiet ones with clean notes; the ones whose clothes smelled faintly of singe; the ones who looked like they’d been born inside a library and only came out in emergencies.

Blizzit found a space beneath a window. He did not eavesdrop on the gossip about who had fainted during Spell Craft or melted a beaker in Alchemy, but the gossip wedged itself into his ears anyway. He closed his eyes and counted his breaths to the pocket watch’s quick tick. He thought of his mother’s hand straightening his collar and of his father’s voice saying You’ll be almost on time, and of Mentalbus’s letter promising ladders.

After the Examination

The doors of the testing hall closed with a sigh like a tired bellows. Outside, the courtyard’s wind smelled less of chalk and more of rain finding stone. Blizzit’s hands still trembled, the good kind from focus, and the other kind from knowing that focus had not always translated into results.

He sat on the low wall with his pack between his boots, feeling suddenly smaller than his vest pockets. The other candidates clustered in knots, boasting, comforting, pretending not to calculate. Somewhere near the gate, a mother whispered a prayer that sounded suspiciously like a recipe. Someone laughed too loudly at nothing.

A proctor in iron grey strode past with a box of sealed exam slates hugged to her ribs. “Results posted tomorrow,” she called, not unkind. “No bargaining, no bribes, no borrowing answers from the ether.”

Blizzit watched her go and thought, hopelessly, about the one rune that had wobbled when it needed to sing and the one stir that had foamed when it needed to bind. He had not failed. But he had not dazzled. He had been, in a word with edges, *close*.

On the road down the hill, carts creaked. Over the parapet, Dawnfire’s streets shone with evening. Blizzit wound the strap of his pack around his palm until the leather left a map.

“Come on,” his father said gently, appearing at his shoulder as if he had always been there. “Let’s give your nerves a roof.”

They took a room above a baker’s where the wallpaper had once been flowers and had since become stories about flowers. Blizzit lay awake and counted the ticks of a sign swinging outside the window. He had the odd certainty that if he counted to some unknown number, the morning would forgive him. He lost count three times and the morning came anyway.

The Posting

A crowd gathered under the Great Hall arch, steaming in the mountain air. Proctors nailed a broad sheet to the board with little enchanted tacks that hopped if you poked them. Names ranked by score. Notes in neat marginalia: “provisional”,” “recommended for general track,” “see registrar.”

Blizzit found *Blizzit* where the B’s went to be judged. His score blinked up at him like an honest friend. He had made it, by four points. He was 174th out of 175.

The world narrowed the way a tunnel does when a train is coming. He did not hear the boy who whooped for joy at the top of the list. He did not hear the girl who said, “Provisional counts,” and meant it. He heard only the soft sound a hope makes when it takes a step back.

“Four points from last,” he said aloud, because sometimes you needed the mercy of a number. "Woohoo, I made it!", he hooted loudly.

He walked out through the gates with the other applicants, each of them waving to some version of home. At the last arch he looked back. The towers shone. He took the picture into himself as if he could keep it alive by faith.

“There’s my scholar! Didn’t I tell you he’d do it?”

His mother was marching through the gates as though she owned the place, skirts flapping, her husband a few paces behind her with a sack of tools slung over one shoulder and a list clenched in his fist.

Blizzit blinked. “How—?”

“We came early,” his father said, beaming. “Figured we’d beat the crowd at the bookstore. No sense letting the good cauldrons sell out before you even start.”

“There isn’t a crowd,” Blizzit managed.

“Exactly! Smart thinking runs in the family,” his father said proudly.

The Shopping Trip

The Dawnfire student quarter was already alive with noise. Shopkeepers shouted prices over the hiss of potion burners; enchanted banners fluttered with sales on “Safe” Explosives.

Mrs. Geargrin seized her son’s arm. “Books first, then robes, then lunch. We’ll be efficient.”

The bookstore smelled of dust and ozone. Shelves floated in slow orbit around a glowing center column that hummed approvingly whenever someone made a purchase. A volume of Elemental Caution and You tried to escape by burrowing into Blizzit’s satchel; his mother smacked it gently until it behaved.

Next came the apothecary stalls. Bottles argued about whose contents were more stable. One labeled Elixir of Focus whispered, Buy me, I promise not to explode. His father picked it up skeptically. “You can’t trust glass that talks too much.”

At the uniform shop, tape measures flitted like dragonflies. “Arms up, dear,” his mother ordered. The enchanted measuring tape looped around Blizzit’s waist twice and whispered, “Growing boy, are we?” before scribbling his dimensions in midair.

In the equipment district, Mr. Geargrin paused at a vendor selling “self aware cauldrons.”

“It hums while it stews,” the merchant promised.

“Mine hums too,” Mr. Geargrin said. “It’s called me. Half the price.”

They ended their tour at a tiny café built into the hillside. Steam drifted from kettles that poured themselves. His mother produced a paper from her bag, a Required Materials list twice as long as Blizzit’s arm, and checked off each item with militant satisfaction.

“Robes, check. Textbooks, check. Potions kit, check. Cauldron that sings, unchecked.”

“It hums,” his father muttered.

“It costs,” she replied, folding the list.

Blizzit laughed until his tea nearly spilled. For the first time since he’d arrived, the knot of anxiety in his chest loosened.

Heading Home

By late afternoon, the towers of the Arcanum glowed rose gold against the sinking sun.

The Geargrins’ wagon rattled down the cobblestone path, piled with parcels that occasionally rearranged themselves.

From the crest of the hill Blizzit turned for one last look, the spires rising through the mist like quills ready to write his next chapter.

“You’ll be back tomorrow,” his mother said.

His father nodded toward the towers. “Just remember, lad, no invention worth building stays quiet the first time. Same goes for people.”

Blizzit smiled, tucking the parchment of acceptance into his vest pocket. “I’ll remember.”

The Last Night at Home

Geargrin Hollow smelled of stew, oil, and warm metal. His old workbench still held the skeleton of a half finished gadget that had once tried to make toast and nearly made firewood.

Dinner was noisy and perfect. His father demonstrated the cauldron they had bought, it burped smoke in triumph. His mother packed and repacked his trunk three times, adding socks, biscuits, and a tin labeled Emergency Tea.

When the house finally went quiet, Blizzit sat on his bed and looked at the blueprints pinned to the wall.

Every line and smudge had led to this: tomorrow he would go back to Dawnfire, not as a hopeful visitor, but as a student.

He blew out the candle and lay back, listening to the soft tick of the gear clock his father had built years ago. Each tick felt like a heartbeat counting down to something vast.

He smiled into the dark. “All right,” he whispered, “tomorrow we start properly.”

Outside, the wind carried the faint scent of the mountain, a promise waiting to be kept.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 — Orientation at Dawnfire

Blizzit woke before the light reached the windows.

At first he did not open his eyes. He lay still on his back, hands folded loosely over his chest, breathing slowly as if the day might overlook him if he did not move. The ceiling beams above him were dark against the dimness, familiar shapes he had traced a thousand times when sleep refused to come. The house around him was quiet in the particular way that meant morning was approaching but had not yet arrived.

The clock on the wall ticked with relentless patience. Each sound landed in his ears more sharply than usual, as if the room itself had decided to remember everything for him. Somewhere below, wood creaked softly as the floor settled. From the kitchen came the muted clink of metal on metal as a kettle was set onto the stove.

These sounds had always been there. He had never noticed how much he relied on them until this morning, when every noise felt like something he needed to memorize before it slipped away.

Today, he was leaving.

The thought pressed down on his chest, not painful but heavy, like a weight he had agreed to carry. Yesterday he had been waiting for the letter, pacing the length of his room until his footsteps had worn a path in the floorboards. He had argued with himself in circles, rehearsing what he would say if the Arcanum rejected him. He had told himself that missing the entrance score by a few points would not define him. That he would keep building, keep tinkering, keep learning on his own, the way he always had.

Then the letter had arrived.

Accepted.

Barely.

The word still felt fragile, like it might crumble if he examined it too closely. Accepted did not mean celebrated. It did not mean welcomed. It meant permitted. Allowed through the gates provisionally, with the unspoken understanding that permission could be revoked.

Blizzit turned onto his side and stared at the shelves opposite his bed. They bowed slightly under the weight of half finished projects and scavenged components. Springs rested beside bent gears. Coils of wire tangled with cracked lenses. Each piece had once been discarded by someone else, deemed useless or broken beyond repair.

He had always liked working with those things. Discarded parts did not expect perfection. They did not judge mistakes. They only asked for patience, for someone willing to look at them long enough to see what they could still become.

Sometimes he wondered if the Arcanum had accepted him for the same reason.

A spring. A cog. Something small and easily overlooked, but potentially useful if placed just right.

He pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His foot clipped a loose wrench he had forgotten to put away the night before. It snapped shut with a sharp metallic click that echoed through the quiet room.

Blizzit winced and scooped it up quickly, turning it over in his hands before tossing it back onto the shelf where it belonged.

“Not today,” he muttered, more to himself than the tool.

He dressed without thinking, movements practiced and economical. Shirt. Trousers. Boots. He paused only when he reached for his goggles. They sat on the desk beside his bed, lenses facing upward, catching what little light the room held. He lifted them carefully and settled them onto his forehead, adjusting the strap until it felt right.

One lens was faintly scratched, a reminder of an experiment that had gone wrong in a way that had been louder than intended. He had tried to polish it smooth once, then stopped halfway through.

He liked that scratch. It reminded him to be careful without demanding he be flawless.

Downstairs, the house was warmer, fuller with morning life. The kitchen smelled of tea and warm metal, the familiar scent that lingered whenever his father worked late repairing tools. His mother stood at the counter with her back turned, moving a cup from one place to another for no particular reason. His father sat at the table, already dressed, and slid a mug toward him as Blizzit entered.

“You do not have to rush,” his father said evenly. “Orientation lasts all day.”

“I know,” Blizzit replied, though his foot bounced beneath the table, tapping out a rhythm he could not stop.

His mother turned then, reached out, and straightened his collar. She pulled her hand back quickly, as if embarrassed by the gesture. “You have everything?”

Blizzit nodded. “Tools. Papers. Schedule.”

“And food,” his father added, glancing pointedly toward the lunchbox waiting by the door.

Blizzit managed a faint smile. “Food.”

They ate mostly in silence. It was not an uncomfortable silence, but it was careful, as though none of them wanted to say the wrong thing and shatter the moment. When the carriage arrived, Blizzit rose immediately.

The ride to the Arcanum felt longer than any journey he could remember. The wheels rattled steadily over the stone road as familiar buildings fell away behind them. Blizzit watched as fields and workshops gave way to rising towers of pale stone. Dawnfire emerged gradually, its spires catching the early sun.

Runes traced the outer walls like veins of light, pulsing softly as the wards shifted from night cycle to day. The sight tightened his chest. This was not a place built to tolerate mistakes.

They spoke little on the ride. There was nothing left to say that would not sound like a farewell.

When the carriage stopped, Blizzit stepped down and looked up. Bells rang out across the grounds, seven deliberate tones that settled into his bones.

Yesterday, he had been a boy waiting to be judged.

Today, he was a student.

His parents embraced him quickly, fiercely. His mother pressed a small wrapped bundle into his hands, a collection of familiar tools. His father rested a hand on his shoulder, firm and steady.

“We will be home by lantern light,” his father said. “You are where you belong now.”

Blizzit nodded because his voice refused to cooperate.

He watched the carriage roll away until it vanished down the road. Only then did he turn back toward the gates of the Arcanum and draw a careful breath.

Orientation swallowed him whole.

The moment Blizzit stepped into the assembly hall, the air changed. It felt thicker, weighted with restrained magic and expectation. The space was vast, far larger than anything he had ever stood inside, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into shadow broken only by drifting lights that moved with deliberate slowness. Pillars rose from the floor like stone trees, each one carved with sigils that pulsed faintly as students passed between them.

He hesitated at the threshold, suddenly aware of how small he was.

Then he forced himself forward.

Rows of benches stretched across the floor in careful arcs, all angled toward a raised platform at the front of the hall. Students were already filing in, voices echoing and overlapping as they searched for seats. Some moved confidently, laughing and greeting one another as if this were merely the next step in a path they had always expected to walk. Others lingered near the walls, clutching satchels and schedules like lifelines.

Blizzit chose a seat near the middle. Close enough to see, far enough not to be noticed. He folded his hands in his lap and sat very straight, as if posture alone might convince the room he belonged there.

The hall quieted gradually, not because anyone asked it to, but because the space itself seemed to expect silence. Conversations softened, then stopped. The drifting lights brightened almost imperceptibly.

A figure stepped onto the platform.

The Headmaster was not imposing in the way Blizzit had expected. He was not tall, nor broad, nor dramatic. He stood with the easy stillness of someone who did not need to command attention because it would come regardless. When he spoke, his voice carried effortlessly through the hall, clear and resonant without amplification.

“Welcome,” he said, and the word seemed to settle into the stone itself. “You stand within the Arcanum of Dawnfire.”

Blizzit felt the words more than he heard them.

The Headmaster spoke of history first. Of the founding of the Arcanum. Of generations of scholars, inventors, and mages who had passed through these halls. He spoke of triumphs and disasters with equal weight, never lingering too long on either.

“This is not a place of unchecked ambition,” the Headmaster said. “It is a place of responsibility.”

Blizzit wrote that down.

The speech continued, moving from tradition to expectation. Power, the Headmaster said, was not rare. Wisdom was. Knowledge without restraint was a liability, not an achievement.

As he spoke, Blizzit noticed the way the lights overhead pulsed in subtle rhythm with certain phrases. When the Headmaster spoke of restraint, the sigils carved into the pillars glowed faintly, as if acknowledging an old agreement.

When the speech ended, there was no applause. The silence that followed felt deliberate.

Faculty members followed, each stepping forward in turn. Some spoke briefly. Others spoke at length.

One professor warned them plainly that most first years underestimated the Arcanum and paid for it in lost privileges, injuries, or worse. Another spoke passionately about discipline, about learning fundamentals before attempting innovation.

Blizzit shifted in his seat.

Innovation was the word that caught him every time.

A thin woman with sharp eyes and immaculate robes spoke next. Her gaze swept the hall as if measuring them.

“This institution does not exist to indulge curiosity,” she said. “Curiosity without discipline is chaos.”

Blizzit’s stomach tightened.

Another professor spoke about collaboration. About how magic was rarely safe when practiced alone. Blizzit wrote that down too, underlining it twice.

Then came the rules.

They were not read quickly.

Each rule was spoken clearly, deliberately, with a pause between them that allowed the weight of the words to settle.

No unsupervised spellcasting.

Blizzit nodded, writing carefully.

No experimental enchantments outside designated laboratories.

He paused, then continued writing.

No combining disciplines without explicit approval.

His pen slowed.

No altering food.

He frowned slightly but wrote it down.

No animating furniture.

A few students chuckled nervously. Blizzit did not.

No creating self replicating magic.

The last rule landed like a stone dropped into still water. Blizzit felt something tighten behind his ribs.

As the rules continued, he became acutely aware of how specific some of them were. These were not abstract warnings. They were lessons learned the hard way.

By the time the final rule was spoken, his hand ached.

The hall stirred as the assembly concluded. Voices rose cautiously, then more freely. Students stood, stretching stiff limbs and comparing notes.

Blizzit remained seated for a moment longer, letting the noise wash over him. He felt oddly hollow, as if the Arcanum had reached inside him and rearranged something fundamental.

He stood slowly and joined the flow toward the exits.

As he moved through the hall, he caught sight of the halfling girl again, laughing as she spun around to say something animatedly to another student. She seemed entirely at ease, as though the warnings had slid off her without leaving a mark.

Near one of the pillars, the quiet elf stood reading a scroll, her brow furrowed in concentration even as students passed around her. She barely reacted when someone brushed past her shoulder, adjusting her stance without looking up.

Blizzit wondered, briefly, what it would feel like to belong that easily.

Then the doors opened and the sound of the courtyard rushed in, and the moment passed.

Lunch arrived in a rush of noise and movement.

The dining hall was larger than Blizzit expected, long tables stretching away in neat rows, banners hanging high enough to make the ceiling feel even farther away. Sunlight spilled through tall windows, breaking into pale bars across the floor. The room smelled of warm bread, roasted herbs, and something faintly sweet that might have been dessert being carried somewhere out of sight.

It should have felt welcoming.

Instead it felt like a test that had already started.

Students poured in behind him, filling the space with voices and scraping chairs. Groups formed quickly, as if everyone else had received instructions he had missed. Some students moved with the confidence of people who already belonged, claiming seats, calling to friends, laughing too loudly to hide nerves. Others hovered at the edges, clutching trays, scanning for a place to exist without being noticed.

Blizzit stood just inside the doorway, tray in hand, and felt the old familiar hesitation settle in his stomach.

Every table felt wrong.

Not because anyone looked hostile. Most of them barely looked at him at all. But there was an unspoken language to how people sat. Who saved spaces. Who left gaps. Who leaned in to speak and who turned away. Blizzit had never been good at reading that language quickly.

His stomach growled.

He lowered his gaze to his tray as if it could offer advice. Bread, fruit, a portion of something steaming that smelled like pepper and onions. The lunchbox sat beside it, innocently closed, its latch neatly aligned.

He had built it as a convenience. A clever little device to keep food warm and safe, sealed from spills and bumps. He had added one small feature late last night, because the idea had seemed too elegant to ignore.

A stabilizing clamp. A small arm to hold items in place.

In his head, the arm had held a sandwich gently so it would not slide around.

In his head, it had not eaten.

He looked back up.

Near the end of one table, he saw the halfling girl again. Red hair pulled into twin ponytails, laughter bright and effortless. She was facing someone as she spoke, hands moving as if the story required motion to be fully told. Across from her sat the quiet elf, head bent over a notebook even while eating, calm and deliberate, as if the noise around her was merely weather.

Blizzit hesitated.

He could sit near them. Not with them. Just near. He could exist in the space without demanding interaction.

He took one step forward.

His lunchbox clicked.

Blizzit froze.

The latch lifted on its own.

“No,” he whispered.

The lid popped open with cheerful efficiency. A small mechanical arm unfolded, joint by joint, smooth as a well oiled hinge. It paused briefly, as if confirming its target, then seized his sandwich with perfect certainty.

Blizzit stared, horrified, as the arm pulled the sandwich inward and the lunchbox consumed it with an enthusiastic crunch.

The sound cut through the dining hall noise like a snapped twig in a quiet forest.

Heads turned.

Conversations paused.

Blizzit felt heat rush into his face so quickly it was dizzying.

The lunchbox crunched again, even louder, then emitted a small satisfied burp.

For a heartbeat, the hall was silent.

Then the halfling girl laughed. Not unkindly. Not mocking, exactly. Just genuinely delighted, the way someone laughed when the world did something absurd and unexpected. A few other students chuckled too, more cautiously, as if gauging whether laughter was safe.

The quiet elf glanced up once. Her expression did not change. She took in the lunchbox, Blizzit’s mortified posture, the surrounding attention, and then returned to her notes as if she had seen stranger things before breakfast.

Blizzit swallowed hard.

“I can explain,” he said weakly, to no one in particular.

The lunchbox clicked its lid shut with a finality that felt smug.

Blizzit tightened his grip on the tray and moved quickly toward the far end of the table, the space where sitting would be least noticeable. He set the tray down with exaggerated care, as if any sudden movement might trigger a second betrayal.

He ate what remained. Slowly. Methodically.

While he chewed, his mind worked through the lunchbox’s mechanism with the cold logic he wished he could apply to embarrassment. The arm had been keyed to stabilize food. It had not been keyed to distinguish between holding and taking. The clamp pressure might have triggered the heating rune. The rune might have triggered the consumption latch.

He would fix it later. He would remove the arm entirely if he had to.

Fixing the lunchbox was simple.

Fixing the impression he had just made felt impossible.

Across the table, the halfling girl was still laughing, wiping at her eyes, nudging her friend as if to say, did you see that. Blizzit stared rigidly at his plate and pretended he did not notice. The quiet elf did not look up again.

Blizzit finished eating and stood quickly, gathering his tray. He did not run. Running would have made it worse.

He left the dining hall and drew a careful breath in the corridor outside, where the air was cooler and the echoes smaller.

He told himself it did not matter. No one here knew him yet. He could start over in the next room, the next hour, the next day.

He could be someone other than the boy with the hungry lunchbox.

The afternoon continued in tours and warnings.

Upper year students guided them through corridors that curved subtly when no one was looking. Staircases shifted if climbed too confidently. Doors sometimes resisted until greeted politely, and Blizzit found himself murmuring greetings under his breath like a superstition.

He watched everything. The way runes glowed when students passed certain points. The way some arches seemed to hum faintly as if counting. The way lantern light changed color in different halls, warm in one corridor, pale in another, a quiet indication that different wards were active.

The library made him stop short.

It was not just large. It was impossibly large. Shelves rose higher than the ceiling should have allowed, ladders gliding along rails with a mind of their own. The air smelled of old parchment and binding glue and the faint metallic tang of ink.

Some books whispered. Others were silent in a way that felt watchful.

A librarian moved through the space with smooth, quiet authority. When her gaze flicked toward Blizzit, sharp and assessing, he immediately stepped back into the group as if he had been summoned.

He did not want his first library interaction to become a story faculty told each other with tired expressions.

By the time the dormitory tour ended and students were released to unpack, Blizzit’s head ached from information overload. The Arcanum did not merely exist. It asserted itself. It hummed in his bones.

He found his dormitory floor, checked the brass plaque on his door twice, then opened it carefully.

The room was small but orderly. Stone walls, pale and cool. A narrow bed with neatly folded blankets. A desk beneath the window. A wardrobe pressed against the far wall.

And a trash can.

Blizzit stared at it.

It sat innocently near the desk, plain metal, lid closed. It looked harmless in the way objects often did right before proving otherwise.

He crossed the room, set his satchel on the desk, and removed a scrap of parchment from his pocket. He dropped it into the trash can.

It landed with a soft tap.

Then another identical scrap appeared beside it.

Blizzit stared.

He leaned closer, frowned, and dropped a copper coin into the bin.

Two coins clinked.

“Oh no,” he murmured.

The trash can hummed.

It was not loud. It was not aggressive. It hummed like something pleased with itself, like a cat purring after knocking something off a table.

Blizzit straightened slowly. He nudged the bin with his foot.

It did not move.

He nudged it again.

It vibrated faintly, as if acknowledging him.

“This is a senior prank,” he said aloud, because saying it made it feel more manageable. “This has to be a senior prank.”

The trash can hummed again, longer.

From behind him, the bed creaked.

Blizzit froze.

The sound came again, followed by the unmistakable scrape of wood on stone.

He turned slowly.

The bed had shifted.

Only an inch. Perhaps less. But it was undeniably closer to the window than it had been moments before.

Blizzit swallowed.

He had expected tricks, vaguely. He had heard rumors about senior pranks, about new students arriving to rooms that misbehaved. He had not expected the furniture to respond as if it had opinions.

“Stop that,” he said.

The bed did not move again.

The trash can hummed, softer, as if amused.

Blizzit took a careful step backward and lowered himself into the chair at the desk, eyes flicking between the furniture like prey tracking predators. The wardrobe remained closed. The desk stayed firmly in place. The trash can sat patiently, as if waiting for him to provide more items for duplication.

He exhaled slowly.

“Rules,” he muttered. “Respect the rules.”

He unpacked with exaggerated care, placing each item deliberately. Tools went into the desk drawer, arranged by size and function. Notebooks stacked neatly. He set his goggles aside and then picked them up again, adjusting them, as if their presence might help him see the logic of what was happening.

He tested the trash can once more, reluctantly, dropping a small pebble into it. Two pebbles appeared. The can hummed in satisfaction.

“That is going to be a problem,” Blizzit whispered.

He slid the bin into the far corner, wedging it between the wardrobe and the wall. It hummed once in protest, then fell quiet.

The bed remained still.

Blizzit sat on it cautiously, half expecting it to scoot away or tilt. It did not. The blankets felt strangely crisp, as if they had been pressed recently. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, listening.

Footsteps moved in the corridor outside. Laughter echoed faintly. Somewhere above him, a door slammed and someone shouted a triumphant insult, followed by hurried apologies.

The Arcanum was not quiet, even when it was supposed to be.

As evening approached, exhaustion settled into Blizzit’s bones. He returned to his room after dinner, expecting at least one object to have moved again.

When he opened the door, he stopped short.

The room was cleaner.

Not tidy. Clean.

His books were stacked neatly. Tools aligned with unnerving precision. The bed had returned to its original position, square to the wall. The trash can sat quietly in its corner, lid closed, as if it had never hummed at all.

Blizzit stared.

“I did not ask for this,” he said.

No response.

He crossed the threshold cautiously. No furniture shifted. No hum rose from the bin. The silence felt more suspicious than the noise had.

Only when he placed his satchel on the desk did he notice a single scrap of parchment resting on top.

It was identical to the one he had thrown away earlier.

Blizzit picked it up and turned it over. He checked for runes, for marks, for anything that would explain why it had returned. There was nothing.

He set it down slowly.

“We are going to have words about consent,” he sighed, though the room remained silent.

He extinguished the lamp and lay back on the bed, boots still on, staring at the ceiling.

Unfamiliar sounds filtered through the stone. Voices. Footsteps. Distant laughter. The hum of wards settling into night cycle.

Tomorrow, classes would begin.

Tomorrow, expectations would sharpen.

Tomorrow, he would have to prove that the few points separating him from failure were enough.

Blizzit closed his eyes and whispered, “I can do this.”

In the corner, the trash can hummed softly in agreement.

The bed did not move.

Somewhere deep in the tower, gears turned. Wards watched. The Arcanum waited.