Chapter Eight: The Unauthorized Curriculum
Roman lasted nineteen days as an obedient student.
The number would later appear in three disciplinary reports, one documentary retrospective and a formal memorandum titled:
FOUNDATION ATTENDANCE IRREGULARITIES AND THE LIMITS OF COMPETENCY-BASED ENFORCEMENT
Roman considered nineteen days generous.
The trouble began with arithmetic.
Not because he disliked numbers.
He liked numbers when they controlled something.
Money.
Odds.
Distribution percentages.
Ward pressure.
How many sweets remained after Cassian claimed his share.
Foundation arithmetic concerned colored stones.
Master Pellin placed twelve blue counters on the table and asked the class to divide them between three imaginary owls.
Roman looked at the counters.
Then at the teacher.
“Why?”
“The owls require equal portions.”
“Why?”
“Because that is the exercise.”
“What if one owl bigger?”
“They are identical.”
“What if one worked?”
Master Pellin paused.
The witness motes floated near the ceiling, recording every bronze-token student with their usual seven-minute delay.
“Then the problem would be different.”
“Better problem.”
“It is not today’s problem.”
Roman divided the counters.
Four.
Four.
Four.
Master Pellin nodded.
“Correct.”
Roman pushed them back.
“Next.”
The teacher gave him another exercise.
Twenty silver marks divided between five workers.
Roman arranged the counters unevenly.
Eight.
Five.
Three.
Two.
Two.
Master Pellin looked down.
“That is not equal.”
“Supervisor.”
He pointed toward the eight.
“Skilled worker.”
Five.
“Three regular.”
The remaining amounts.
“There are four workers besides the supervisor.”
“One lazy.”
Several children laughed.
Master Pellin did not.
“The exercise concerns division.”
“Yes.”
“Equal division.”
“You said workers, not shares.”
Mireya Bellafont sat two desks away. Her mechanical supply case had already completed the worksheet and was now sorting spare pen nibs by material.
She adjusted her spectacles.
“He is technically correct. Wages depend upon role, skill and contract.”
Master Pellin looked toward her.
“This is Foundation arithmetic.”
“Then use objects without labor categories.”
Roman pointed toward her.
“Yes.”
The teacher replaced the workers with apples.
Roman divided them equally.
Then asked who owned the orchard.
That afternoon, he requested the term assessment.
Foundation students normally took it after twelve weeks.
Master Pellin refused.
Roman requested it again through the academic slate.
The slate denied the request because of age.
He opened the age restriction.
The restriction cited curriculum policy.
He opened the policy.
The policy allowed early competency examination with instructor approval or Founder review.
Master Pellin did not approve.
Roman submitted the request to Doctor Rook.
She approved because she wanted to know what would happen.
He scored ninety-four percent.
The six lost points came from refusing to count a fictional debt twice merely because the worksheet instructed him to.
Master Pellin advanced him to the next arithmetic sequence.
Roman took that assessment three days later.
Eighty-nine percent.
Then civic numeracy.
Ninety-two.
Household accounting.
Ninety-seven.
Mireya scored one hundred and asked why his ledger depreciation model ignored equipment maintenance.
He corrected it.
The Academy discovered a problem.
Roman was disruptive in lessons below his tested competence.
Rookspire’s Charter did not permit instructors to retain a student in mastered material merely because the student’s age made advancement aesthetically uncomfortable.
It also did not allow a four-year-old to wander between classes according to personal interest.
The two principles collided.
Roman stepped between them.
His first skipped class was penmanship.
Technically, he attended.
He entered Foundation Script at eight forty-five, placed his rook pin against the attendance seal and remained until Instructor Vale turned toward the demonstration board.
Then he crawled beneath the rear supply table.
Céleste watched.
Her white appearance token blurred her from the documentary feed but did nothing to conceal her inside the classroom.
“Where?” she whispered.
“Advanced wards.”
“You can’t.”
“I can walk.”
“That’s not same.”
“It gets there.”
He removed a small silver disk from his pocket.
The disk carried nine black waves around its edge.
Not Gideon’s gaming token.
Lucien had destroyed that.
This object belonged to a dismantled harbor relay system stored in Duvall House after the Ninth Tide raid. Gideon had brought the crate for Corven’s inspection, argued that half the seized equipment remained commercially useful and left before the inventory finished.
Roman had not received the disk from his uncle.
Gideon had not given it to him.
Gideon had merely left stolen smuggler equipment inside a room Roman could reach through a ventilation corridor Bishop had already mapped.
The distinction would later support several denials.
Roman pressed the disk against the classroom’s maintenance panel.
A line of black text appeared.
HARBOR GHOST RELAY
SOURCE AUTHORITY: INVALID
SECONDARY ACCESS: SEEKING
The disk searched for unsecured service systems.
Rookspire’s classroom wards rejected it.
The documentary network did not.
Argent Dreamworks had installed temporary relay lines beside the Academy’s permanent systems. Those lines were heavily protected against external intrusion and less prepared for a device already inside a recorded classroom.
The disk identified the witness-mote control channel.
Roman smiled.
Céleste crouched beside him.
“What does it do?”
“Finds doors.”
“That is not door.”
“Everything door.”
He touched the relay again.
The nearest witness mote rotated away from the children and toward Instructor Vale.
The documentary feed continued showing the lesson.
Roman crawled through the rear service opening while the mote’s coverage remained fixed.
Céleste looked toward the teacher.
Then the opening.
Then Roman.
“Wait.”
She followed.
Mireya saw both of them leave.
She closed her arithmetic slate.
Layla Finch saw Mireya stand.
“What are they doing?”
“Creating documentation problems.”
“Are we going?”
Mireya considered the unfinished penmanship exercise.
She already wrote cleanly enough to authenticate commercial forms.
“Yes.”
Layla followed because a forbidden maintenance passage contained more educational value than copying the letter R twelve times.
The four children entered the service corridor.
Roman returned the panel to place.
Inside the classroom, Instructor Vale continued teaching.
She had noticed.
Teachers at Rookspire possessed more perception than children preferred.
She also knew the room’s attendance seal would report whether students crossed an authorized exit.
It had not.
The students remained inside the classroom’s registered boundary because the service corridor shared its ward footprint.
Instructor Vale finished demonstrating the letter.
Then quietly activated a staff message.
FOUR FOUNDATION STUDENTS INSIDE EASTERN SERVICE CHANNEL. NO IMMEDIATE HAZARD. SECURITY REVIEW REQUESTED AFTER LESSON.
She did not stop teaching.
Twenty-one other children remained.
Disrupting all of them to chase four would reward the escape with an audience.
Rookspire teachers learned quickly.
Roman learned faster.
The service corridor ran behind three classrooms.
Copper pipes carried heat.
Blue channels carried aether.
Narrow windows allowed staff to inspect ward interiors without entering active lessons.
Roman stopped beside the first.
Advanced Civic Wards.
Students twice his age stood around a floor diagram representing a village under monster siege. Their instructor moved wooden markers between roads while explaining resource priority.
“Where do you reinforce first?” she asked.
A ten-year-old noble pointed toward the manor.
“Command center.”
Another chose the gate.
A third selected the hospital.
Roman watched through the maintenance window.
The instructor changed the scenario.
The monster could tunnel.
The outer gate lost value.
The manor contained emergency communication.
The hospital held civilians but no independent ward generator.
Mireya studied the resource chart.
“They have one mobile generator.”
Roman pointed toward the school.
“Put there.”
“Why?”
“Children. High ground. Near water.”
Layla examined the diagram through the glass.
“The school roof has old copper. Generator could overload.”
“Then hospital.”
Mireya disagreed.
“The hospital’s patient wards already draw power. Connecting a mobile generator without balancing the load risks cascade failure.”
Céleste pointed toward a grain mill.
“That building ugly.”
No one considered this strategically relevant.
Inside the classroom, the instructor assigned the generator to the manor and ordered civilians moved uphill.
Roman shook his head.
“Bad.”
The instructor turned toward the maintenance window.
Their eyes met through the glass.
She had heard him.
The service pane opened.
“Would you like to explain that assessment?”
Roman considered running.
Security had not arrived yet.
The lesson interested him.
“Yes.”
The instructor opened the service door.
“Enter properly.”
Roman did.
The others followed.
Older students stared.
The documentary witness mote in the room turned toward Roman, recognized his bronze token and began recording.
The instructor folded her arms.
“Why is the plan bad?”
“Tunnel monster.”
“Yes.”
“Road uphill narrow.”
“Yes.”
“Moving everyone makes bottleneck.”
One older student objected.
“The manor has the strongest walls.”
“Monster tunnels.”
“It still has inner wards.”
“Then people trapped inside when ground breaks.”
The instructor looked toward the map.
“Alternative?”
Roman pointed toward the grain mill.
Céleste looked triumphant.
“It is ugly,” she repeated.
Roman ignored that.
“Mill has water wheel.”
Layla understood.
“Mechanical power source.”
Mireya added, “And separate grain silos that can become shelters.”
“The copper is better there,” Roman said. “Generator connects. Hospital sends healers. Manor sends communication staff.”
The instructor studied the scenario.
“Who protects the school?”
Roman moved a guard marker from the manor.
“Older students help small ones.”
A few older students smiled.
The instructor did not.
Not immediately.
Then she adjusted the map.
The simulation processed the alternative.
PROJECTED CIVILIAN SURVIVAL: EIGHTY-ONE PERCENT
The original plan had produced seventy-four.
“Acceptable,” she said.
Roman looked toward the older student who had challenged him.
“Bad plan.”
The instructor held up one hand.
“Do not confuse a better result in one simulation with permission to insult another student’s reasoning.”
“Didn’t insult him.”
“You called the plan bad.”
“Plan not person.”
The distinction belonged to Seraphine’s disciplinary logic.
Separate responsibility.
Separate object.
The instructor accepted it reluctantly.
“What class are you meant to be attending?”
“Penmanship.”
The room laughed.
Roman’s rook pin flashed.
School security had found the service-panel irregularity.
FOUNDATION LOCATION REQUEST
He looked toward the door.
The instructor saw.
“You may remain until the lesson ends.”
The security request changed.
STUDENT TEMPORARILY AUTHORIZED — CIVIC WARDS OBSERVATION
Roman smiled.
The instructor pointed toward an empty chair.
“Sit.”
He did.
Céleste sat beside him.
Mireya opened her case.
Layla began studying the ward table.
Penmanship ended without them.
The Academy marked them absent for the practical handwriting exercise and present for unauthorized cross-level observation.
The system did not know whether to call that failure.
Roman did.
It was improvement.
The next week, he skipped Foundation music to attend monster pathology.
Then introductory history to observe a commercial-contract seminar.
Then supervised play to watch upper-year gate engineers dismantle a portal damaged by a minor spatial fold.
He did not enter randomly.
He reviewed the day’s Academy schedule through a stolen staff routing slate.
That slate had come from Ilyra.
Not intentionally.
Ilyra carried a medical-observer device connected to Roman’s school health record and the documentary delay feed. It allowed her to pause recording if he experienced a medical episode and locate him during emergencies.
Roman borrowed it while she bathed.
He returned it before she noticed.
He copied the access structure with the Harbor Ghost relay.
The result did not grant full medical authority.
It gave him three things.
Teacher schedules.
Witness-mote routing.
The location of his nurse.
Roman used the third most carefully.
Avoiding school security was useful.
Avoiding Ilyra was essential.
Teachers could assign detention.
Ilyra could pick him up.
No loophole defeated being physically carried home.
He began planning routes around her patrol patterns.
Céleste called it hunting the nurse.
Mireya called it evasion modeling.
Layla called it funny.
Ilyra called it a breach of medical trust after discovering the copied access signature.
She caught Roman outside the Transmutation Kitchen, where he had been watching eleven-year-olds turn bitter root into sweet paste without altering nutritional value.
Her hand closed around the back of his school coat.
“Explain.”
Roman remained on his feet only because Melora’s shoes anchored.
“Learning.”
“You cloned my medical observer access.”
“No.”
The Harbor Ghost relay rested inside his pocket.
“Roman.”
“Copied schedule.”
“That access also protects confidential health information.”
“I didn’t open health.”
“You entered the system.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Yes.”
“You redirected documentary motes.”
“Sometimes.”
“You used my location feed to avoid me.”
He considered denial.
Her face made it useless.
“Yes.”
Ilyra crouched.
The corridor students slowed to watch.
She selected a white token from his pocket and replaced his bronze.
The documentary blurred him immediately.
“This conversation is not entertainment.”
Good instinct.
Roman respected it while disliking the outcome.
“You are returning the copied key.”
“Don’t have.”
“Then you are returning the device containing it.”
“No.”
She held out her hand.
Roman looked toward the classroom door.
The transmutation teacher remained inside, continuing her lesson. She had no intention of stopping twelve students to intervene in a nurse-child conflict occurring beyond her ward.
Rookspire handled disruptions locally.
The school had become very good at letting Roman’s chase continue without turning it into institutional theatre.
Ilyra waited.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Need schedule.”
“You receive a student schedule.”
“Bad schedule.”
“You do not have authority to design your own.”
“I pass tests.”
“That does not make every corridor yours.”
“School says learning.”
“School also says permission.”
Roman stepped backward.
Ilyra’s grip remained on his coat.
He reduced the garment’s weight, twisted inside it and slipped one arm free.
She anticipated the second.
He dropped the entire coat.
For half a second, Ilyra held empty fabric.
Roman ran.
No dignity.
No public face.
School shirt untucked, rook pin flashing and one shoe nearly losing its grounding seal as he turned the corner.
“Roman!”
He laughed.
The sound surprised him.
Not a camera laugh.
Not a strategic one.
A child’s delight at escaping someone who loved him enough to chase without becoming dangerous.
Ilyra followed.
She could have used a medical restraint technique.
She did not.
He remained healthy.
No active threat.
No justification.
Roman crossed through the central arcade, beneath a staircase and into the Physical Practice Court.
A Foundation physical-training lesson occupied the field.
Instructor Morrow stood at the center teaching Crownball.
The sport had begun as military coordination training and become one of the Dominion’s most popular school games.
Two teams competed across a layered field containing three scoring rings at different heights. Players could carry the silver ball for only five steps before passing. Minor sanctioned abilities were permitted within age restrictions.
Gravity nudges.
Short speed bursts.
Low-level shields.
Illusion decoys no larger than the ball.
No direct attacks.
The objective was not merely placing the ball through a ring.
Teams earned additional points for coordinated passing, defensive restraint and recovering play after an unexpected field shift.
Roman ran directly onto the court.
The ball came toward him.
Instinct answered.
He caught it.
The school security chime sounded from the arch behind him.
Instructor Morrow looked toward Roman.
Then at Ilyra approaching with his coat.
Then at the Foundation students waiting for direction.
He made a decision.
“Blue team. New receiver. Continue.”
Roman stood inside the game.
Authorized by the teacher.
Ilyra stopped beyond the field boundary.
Instructor Morrow continued the lesson.
“You have the ball, Roman. Five steps.”
Roman ran.
One.
Two.
Three.
A stone-skinned child moved to block the low ring.
Roman passed to Céleste.
She had joined the lesson legitimately and wore her white token.
Her foxfire created three false balls.
The defender followed the wrong one.
Céleste passed to Mireya.
Mireya’s mechanical case had been prohibited from the field, but she had attached a timing bell to her wrist. It sounded at the exact fifth step.
She sent the ball toward Layla.
Layla missed.
The opposing team recovered.
Roman turned.
Security officers entered the court.
Instructor Morrow raised one finger without stopping his commentary.
“Field remains active until the whistle.”
The officers stayed beyond the boundary.
Academy rules prohibited nonemergency interruption during active physical drills. Sudden disruption increased injuries.
Roman understood.
The teacher had not protected him.
He had protected the lesson.
The effect remained useful.
The game continued for seven minutes.
Roman played badly at first.
His former-life coordination did not fit a four-year-old body. He anticipated adult speed his legs could not produce. Twice he attempted turns too sharp for his knees. Melora’s shoes anchored so aggressively that he fell forward.
He learned.
Shorter steps.
Pass before the fifth.
Use gravity on the ball, not himself.
The rules allowed one low-intensity affinity action per possession.
Roman received a pass near the middle ring.
A defender moved left.
He made the ball lighter.
Passed high.
Wind carried it farther than expected.
Céleste jumped.
Foxfire flashed beneath her shoes—not propulsion, officially, but a visual feint that made the defender mistime the block.
She caught it.
Passed to Mireya.
Mireya sent it through the high ring.
Three points.
The Foundation class cheered.
Roman did too.
The whistle sounded.
Security entered.
Instructor Morrow looked toward him.
“You are not enrolled in this physical section.”
“Can be.”
“Your assigned section begins after midday.”
“I’m here now.”
“You are also missing Foundation Script.”
“Passed writing test.”
“You did not pass today’s handwriting observation.”
“Hands work.”
Instructor Morrow looked toward Ilyra holding his coat.
“Your nurse appears to disagree with your current educational method.”
“She wants device.”
“What device?”
Roman said nothing.
The instructor held out his hand.
Not demanding the contraband.
Requesting the truth.
Roman respected him enough to answer partially.
“Schedule key.”
“Authorized?”
“No.”
“Then return it.”
“No.”
Instructor Morrow blew the whistle again.
The ball dropped from the scoring ring into his hand.
“Blue team loses one coordination point.”
The children protested.
Roman stared.
“Why team?”
“You entered their formation carrying an unresolved external breach.”
“They didn’t know.”
“A team inherits the conditions its members bring onto the field.”
Unfair.
Also structurally accurate.
Roman looked toward Céleste.
She folded her arms.
“Give nurse.”
Mireya adjusted her spectacles.
“The copied access creates liability for everyone using your route information.”
Layla added, “Security will patch it anyway.”
The device’s value had already begun collapsing.
Keeping it now served pride more than utility.
Roman removed the Harbor Ghost relay.
Black disk.
Nine waves.
Ilyra saw it.
Her expression went flat.
“That came from the Ninth Tide evidence room.”
“No.”
“It carries a Duvall seizure mark.”
“Storage room.”
“Which storage room?”
Roman looked toward the field.
Instructor Morrow waited.
“Uncle brought crate.”
Ilyra closed her eyes.
“Did Lord Gideon give it to you?”
“No.”
True.
“Did he knowingly allow you to take it?”
“No.”
Probably true.
“Did you steal it from a secured family evidence holding?”
“Borrowed.”
Instructor Morrow looked toward the scoreboard.
“Blue team loses another point for dishonest terminology.”
Roman handed the disk to Ilyra.
She gave him his coat.
Security escorted him to the Foundation office.
The documentary later showed only a blurred child entering the Physical Practice Court and joining a Crownball drill while Academy notices displayed:
UNSCHEDULED PARTICIPATION UNDER REVIEW
The audience loved it.
Roman hated that his best escape had been private.
Cassiel loved it more.
The Harbor Ghost relay should have ended the rebellion.
Instead, it taught Roman what to improve.
Do not depend on one stolen device.
Do not use access linked to a person who can recognize the signature.
Do not fight to preserve a tool after the system knows it exists.
Most importantly:
Do not skip classes you can legally outgrow.
Roman began taking examinations aggressively.
Not cheating.
Cheating would weaken the argument.
He attended scheduled assessment halls, accepted proctors and completed every competency test available under Foundation Charter.
Language.
Arithmetic.
Civic structures.
Introductory monster recognition.
Table conduct.
Gate safety.
Basic ward literacy.
Sonomantic rhythm.
He did not score perfectly.
His handwriting remained uneven.
His fine motor control lagged behind his vocabulary.
He misidentified two rural fey species because the illustrations omitted seasonal forms.
He failed a practical dressing exercise after choosing a noble clasp that looked better but interfered with an emergency release.
Vivienne made him repeat that one.
He passed enough.
Rookspire’s progression framework divided education into three categories.
Knowledge Competency
What a student could explain or identify.
Practical Competency
What a student could perform safely.
Developmental Competency
What required age, emotional regulation, social experience or physical growth regardless of knowledge.
Roman advanced quickly through the first.
Unevenly through the second.
The third blocked him everywhere.
He could explain pact ethics without being permitted near a pact circle.
He could identify a Denlord’s territorial markers without joining field hunts.
He could calculate gate pressure without opening an unsupervised portal.
He could pass the history examination and still be required to attend discussions where other children formed perspectives he did not already possess.
Doctor Rook used the categories against him.
“You may test beyond material,” she said during a curriculum review. “You may not test beyond childhood.”
“Childhood has no test?”
“Correct.”
“Bad system.”
“It is not a system designed to end.”
Roman sat across from her with Vesper on the window perch.
The Headmistress displayed his record.
FOUNDATION ATTENDANCE: FIFTY-EIGHT PERCENT
KNOWLEDGE BENCHMARKS: ABOVE TERM EXPECTATION
PRACTICAL BENCHMARKS: VARIABLE
SOCIAL PARTICIPATION: DISRUPTIVE / PRODUCTIVE
DOCUMENTARY COMPLIANCE: INCONSISTENT
SAFETY RECORD: ACCEPTABLE WITH FOUR SIGNIFICANT BREACHES
“Then let me choose lessons,” Roman said.
“You already choose lessons.”
“Legally.”
“You want your rebellion entered into the timetable.”
“Yes.”
Doctor Rook’s mechanical fingers tapped the desk.
“That is an unusually honest request.”
“Easier.”
“Not necessarily.”
She created a new schedule.
Three required Foundation periods each week.
One social discussion.
One physical-development session.
One practical safety lesson.
Everything else became Guided Audit.
Roman could observe approved upper-level classes if the instructor consented, space allowed and he completed the assigned Foundation benchmarks.
He could not interrupt.
He could submit questions afterward.
He could be removed immediately without disciplinary appeal if he disrupted age-appropriate instruction.
The arrangement was called an Individual Constellation Curriculum.
Not a special class.
Rookspire refused to describe it that way publicly.
The documentary called it one anyway.
Families protested.
Some believed fame had purchased Roman academic freedom.
Others demanded identical arrangements for their children.
Doctor Rook responded by opening competency reviews to every student meeting the same conditions.
Most did not.
Several did.
Mireya gained permission to audit commercial enchantment.
Layla entered beginner construct repair.
Perrin added advanced solar theory while remaining in his ordinary social curriculum.
Céleste tested out of formal visual illusion recognition and then refused the audit program because she preferred leaving school earlier.
Roman’s misconduct forced Rookspire to clarify a path that had technically existed and practically remained inaccessible.
He considered that success.
Maris considered it evidence that rewarding rule-breaking encouraged more sophisticated rule-breaking.
Both were correct.
The documentary transformed with him.
FIRST BELL had begun as an observational school series.
Roman turned it into a chase.
He no longer possessed the Harbor Ghost relay.
He did not need it.
Layla had watched the copied routing structure before Ilyra confiscated the device.
Mireya understood the documentary contract.
Céleste understood which adults disliked being embarrassed.
Together, they discovered that witness motes could be redirected without hacking if enough participating students changed token status simultaneously.
The system prioritized consent recalculation.
For three seconds, route coverage paused.
Three seconds opened doors.
Roman began announcing unofficial episodes.
Not through the Academy system.
Through small handwritten cards left near bronze-token gathering points.
TODAY: WHICH CLASS IS ACTUALLY USEFUL?
TODAY: TEACHER CHECK
TODAY: CAN OLDER STUDENTS EXPLAIN THEIR HOMEWORK?
TODAY: CROWN-BALL REVENGE
Students chose whether to follow.
Surprisingly many did.
Not all physically.
Some activated bronze tokens and answered his questions when he visited their classes.
Some teachers permitted the intrusion because public explanation benefited their programs.
Others closed the doors.
The Academy cook still held up her black token whenever Roman approached.
“No.”
He respected her more each time.
Cassiel noticed the unscheduled pattern.
Argent’s editors began building approved documentary segments around it.
Roman saw the first broadcast cut in Ashwing Hall.
The episode showed him entering three classrooms and asking instructors why their lessons mattered outside Rookspire.
Gate engineering answered with evacuation routes.
Monster law answered with livestock disputes.
A noble genealogy instructor answered with a long statement concerning continuity and legitimacy.
The edit cut from him to Layla whispering:
“So rich people know which cousin owns a bridge.”
The episode became the highest-viewed school broadcast of the term.
The genealogy instructor filed a complaint.
Roman sent Layla a percentage of the appearance bonus.
Helena made the transfer legal.
The documentary crew began calling the segments Roman’s Rounds.
Doctor Rook prohibited the title from appearing on Academy materials.
It appeared everywhere else.
His family’s opinions divided.
Maris wanted him home each evening.
For the first month, he returned.
Then one storm delayed the gate route.
Ashwing Hall activated residential status automatically.
Roman slept at school.
The room felt different after dark.
No Maris in the next wing.
No Agnes controlling the kitchens.
No Corven’s patrols hidden behind domestic quiet.
Students whispered through corridors.
Dormitory wards softened footsteps but did not erase them.
Someone released glowing beetles in the washroom.
A six-year-old cried because her home gate had closed before she said goodnight properly.
Vesper slept on the window perch, violet fire reflecting against clouds below the mountain.
Roman’s Househeart cloak warmed once.
Maris.
A reassurance sent through the home anchor.
No command attached.
He touched the thread.
The warmth remained.
He expected homesickness.
What arrived instead was freedom shaped like silence.
The next morning, the storm had cleared.
The home gate opened.
Roman stayed.
Not secretly.
He informed Ilyra.
She informed Maris.
Maris arrived through the gate before breakfast.
She entered Ashwing Hall wearing a dark house robe beneath a hastily fastened travel cloak.
Students stopped eating.
Roman continued.
“You are coming home,” she said.
“No.”
The dining hall became quieter.
Cameras remained active.
Roman changed to white.
The witness motes blurred him.
Maris noticed.
Good.
Private conflict.
“Your gate is open.”
“I know.”
“You were delayed by weather. The delay ended.”
“Want stay.”
“For how long?”
“Tonight too.”
Maris sat opposite him.
No public force.
No order delivered through Househeart.
“Why?”
“School after class.”
“What happens after class?”
“People.”
“You have people at home.”
“Family and staff.”
The distinction hurt her.
He felt it.
House Duvall loved him.
It also arranged almost every relationship around him.
At Rookspire, children closed doors because they disliked him.
Invited him because he was entertaining.
Ignored him because their own lives mattered more.
Teachers could tell him no without risking their employment.
Security chased him because rules applied rather than because Corven had privately calculated the safest consequence.
“Do you dislike home?” Maris asked.
“No.”
“Then why refuse it?”
“Want both.”
Her expression softened and hardened simultaneously.
“You are four.”
“School gave room.”
“We accepted the room for emergencies.”
“You accepted option.”
“Under guardian approval.”
“I’m asking.”
She looked toward Ilyra.
The nurse remained near the serving line, deliberately outside the family conversation.
Roman continued.
“I’m healthy.”
“Yes.”
“Passing.”
“Yes.”
“Not unsafe.”
“Debatable.”
“No incident last week.”
“An impressive seven days.”
“Then stay.”
Maris could withdraw him.
Legally.
The enrollment agreement preserved guardian authority.
But the Academy Charter required a welfare review if a family removed a healthy student immediately after the student requested residence, particularly when the family held territorial authority capable of turning education into confinement.
Rookspire had been built to prevent powerful houses from using children solely as assets.
House Duvall had signed the Charter.
Lucien had insisted that Roman learn outside their control.
Now the control was genuinely outside.
The family could take him home.
They could not make the decision disappear.
Doctor Rook would ask why.
The documentary contract would end.
Other noble houses would claim Duvall participation had always been propaganda.
Roman knew these pressures.
He did not need all of them.
He only needed Maris to understand that forcing him home would transform residence into a battle he intended to keep fighting.
“One week,” she said.
Roman looked at her.
“School nights.”
“One week.”
“Then review.”
“Yes.”
He considered asking for more.
Stopped.
A closed hand took nothing.
“One week.”
Maris reached across the table.
He gave her his hand.
Not victory.
Agreement.
She returned home alone.
Roman watched the gate close behind her.
The freedom tasted worse afterward.
That was the cost column Lucien’s ledger wanted.
WHAT I WANTED: Residence.
WHAT I DID: Refused home.
WHAT IT COST: Maris left hurt.
WHO PAID: Both.
He wrote it that evening.
He did not change the decision.
One week became two.
Then alternating weeks.
Then Roman began returning home only on weekends, family events and approved evenings.
The Duvalls did not “lose” the right to remove him.
They chose not to use it.
Lucien’s reasoning remained severe.
“If we withdraw him because he exploited the structure successfully, we teach him that our authority exists only until challenged.”
Maris answered:
“Our authority does exist after challenge.”
“Yes. The question is whether using it improves him.”
It did not.
Not yet.
Agnes considered boarding useful.
“He cannot appreciate household order without living among children who leave wet towels on floors.”
Vivienne worried about performance.
“He is building an identity around being uncontrollable because the audience rewards it.”
Helena reviewed every contract and concluded that Rookspire could discipline him internally without violating Duvall guardianship.
Corven placed additional security around public gates and disliked everything else.
Gideon sent a dormitory lockpick set.
It was intercepted.
He sent another hidden inside an educational puzzle.
Also intercepted.
The third arrived through Mireya’s supply company as a sample hinge-analysis tool.
Roman received that one.
Gideon denied involvement.
No one believed him.
Ilyra accepted a residential schedule because refusing would remove the medical professional most likely to protect Roman without obeying his every preference.
She stayed in the adjacent staff room.
Roman continued trying to evade her.
Their chase became part of school culture.
Students warned him when she entered a corridor.
Teachers pointed toward the correct exit when he fled the wrong way.
Security learned not to run unless he entered restricted zones.
Running children became faster when pursued.
Walking officers eventually caught them.
Roman adapted by entering lessons.
An instructor could grant temporary observation authority.
Security could not remove him until the lesson ended unless the teacher requested it.
Most teachers understood the game.
Some refused him immediately.
Some allowed him to sit if he remained silent.
A few enjoyed the audience.
Those were the ones he distrusted.
For months, Roman attended school incorrectly.
Monday morning might begin with Foundation social discussion.
He remained for fifteen minutes, completed the written reflection and left during group sharing because the topic concerned taking turns with communal materials.
He had already learned that through servants, cousins, studio equipment and several confiscated relay devices.
He entered upper-year monster economics instead.
The lesson examined why exterminating a dangerous species could damage rural trade.
Wyvern eggs destroyed livestock.
Wyvern bone funded half the nearby ward industry.
Kill every wyvern and farms became safer for five years.
Then protective charm prices rose.
Unemployed hunters entered bandit work.
Lesser drakes multiplied without the larger predator.
Roman stayed for the entire period.
Tuesday, he attended Foundation rhythm because sound regulation affected his hunger.
He did not skip.
He followed thirteen-beat exercises, learned to separate crowd resonance from individual emotion and developed a technique for closing Ambient Tithe temporarily.
The system recorded progress.
AUDITORY REGULATION — RANK II PROGRESS
EMERGING TECHNIQUE: QUIET CHANNEL
Not acquired.
Developing.
Wednesday, he skipped formal etiquette and entered servant administration.
The class trained future household managers in staff contracts, injury reporting, domestic ward maintenance and abuse prevention.
The instructor tried to remove him.
Roman asked why noble heirs learned to command households without learning the profession supporting them.
She allowed him one session.
He returned every Wednesday.
Thursday belonged to Crownball.
Officially.
He stopped fleeing into the class and enrolled.
His body remained smaller than most players. He compensated through timing, gravity control and ruthless passing choices.
He did not become the best.
Céleste had better spatial instinct.
Perrin possessed stronger disciplined movement.
Layla read mechanical field shifts faster.
Roman became the player who saw what everyone wanted and used it.
Defenders wanted him to shoot because cameras watched him.
He passed.
Teammates wanted personal scoring clips.
He sent the ball where cooperation produced more points.
Opponents expected him to break formation for attention.
He remained still until their coverage overcommitted.
His Fortune-like instincts came from another life, Gideon’s lessons and the simple experience of audiences.
Instructor Morrow made him field caller for one match.
Not captain.
Temporary responsibility.
Roman’s team won through coordinated passing.
He received no individual scoring medal.
The documentary audience complained.
He liked the win more.
That concerned him.
It might have been growth.
It might have been a different kind of ego.
Friday changed depending on curiosity.
Nocturnal medicine.
Stage engineering.
Refugee law.
Phoenix ecology.
Dragon diplomacy.
History archive with Seraphine.
He never skipped the Seraphine session.
Not because he obeyed.
Because she knew his father.
Seraphine watched his rebellion through reports before witnessing it directly.
Her archive room remained open whenever Roman attended.
Vesper occupied the center perch.
The Founder restriction held.
Roman arrived late to their fifth session wearing a Crownball uniform beneath his school coat and carrying a mechanical raven he had borrowed from the performance department.
“Why?” Seraphine asked.
“Raven knows old stage code.”
“This is an archive concerning the Aetheric Strain.”
“Stage code came from Veyran signal theatre.”
Seraphine looked toward the raven.
It projected:
FEATURED CREDIT
Roman tapped its head.
“Wrong memory.”
The raven changed.
Colored light passed through its chest.
A sequence of red, blue and white pulses.
Veyran resistance performers had used stage illumination to transmit evacuation warnings while Dominion censors watched dialogue.
Seraphine leaned forward.
“Where did you learn that?”
“Performance archive.”
“You were assigned medical displacement records.”
“Same history has more rooms.”
That was the best defense of his curriculum she had heard.
Not that he already knew enough.
That subjects connected beyond their assigned walls.
Seraphine did not approve the truancy.
She understood the instinct.
High vampires learned across centuries by following useful threads rather than school terms.
Children required structure because their judgment remained unfinished.
Roman’s judgment was unfinished in unusual places.
He understood contracts better than peer attachment.
Political omission better than physical consequence.
Audience manipulation better than why another child might want him present even when no strategic purpose existed.
“What class are you missing?” she asked.
“Cooperative building.”
“What were they building?”
“Tower.”
“With?”
“Soft blocks.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I know towers.”
Seraphine touched the archive table.
The assigned records disappeared.
A tray of soft wooden blocks formed.
Roman stared.
“No.”
“Build.”
“Archive session.”
“Your curriculum includes developmental competency.”
“This is punishment.”
“Yes.”
Roman sat.
He began stacking.
Fast.
Wide base.
Alternating joints.
A functional tower.
Seraphine placed one block against the side.
It fell.
Roman looked at her.
“Bad.”
“Another student added it.”
“Then remove.”
“You are not permitted to control every contribution.”
“Then tower falls.”
“Possibly.”
She placed a second unstable block.
Roman corrected the structure around it.
“Again,” she said.
By the tenth interruption, the tower looked ugly and remained standing.
Seraphine examined it.
“What did you learn?”
“Other people ruin design.”
“Insufficient.”
“Can build around.”
“Better.”
Roman looked toward her.
“You are tricking me into class.”
“Yes.”
“Bad.”
“Still true.”
Agnes’s phrase had spread too far.
The documentary series entered its second season while Roman remained four.
Its tone changed.
The polished arrivals became shorter.
The unscheduled curriculum became central.
Audiences watched Roman audit lessons, run from school security, argue with teachers and play Crownball.
The production benefited.
Rookspire benefited financially.
Students with bronze tokens received higher trust payments when they appeared in popular segments.
The arrangement created new problems.
Some children followed Roman solely to gain screen time.
Some interrupted lessons hoping to become recurring characters.
One boy staged a false corridor escape and injured himself jumping from a stair rail.
Doctor Rook suspended all documentary coverage of unscheduled movement for two weeks.
Roman objected.
She refused to discuss ratings.
Public Conduct class examined the incident.
The instructor displayed a graph.
Roman’s unofficial escape segments correlated with a forty-one-percent increase in recorded minor rule violations among Foundation students.
“Not my fault,” Roman said.
“Not entirely.”
“They choose.”
“Yes.”
“Then theirs.”
“Influence creates responsibility without removing theirs.”
Roman disliked the sentence.
It sounded like fame.
Artists blamed for fans.
Public figures blamed for imitation.
Sometimes unfairly.
Sometimes because pretending influence did not exist protected only the influential person.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“Change what receives attention.”
Roman understood that.
The next time security approached during an unauthorized audit, he did not run immediately.
He asked the watching students:
“Who finished assigned work?”
Half had not.
He pointed back toward Foundation Hall.
“Then go.”
Several laughed.
He did not.
“No camera if you didn’t.”
The documentary contract allowed him to request exclusion of his own joint scenes.
Children wanting exposure returned to complete their work.
Roman still ran.
The audience still received the chase.
The incentive changed.
Ratings declined slightly.
Doctor Rook approved.
Cassiel complained.
Maris approved more.
Roman considered the trade.
Less attention.
More control over what attention rewarded.
He accepted.
Not happily.
Growth did not require enjoying the cost.
By the winter before his fifth birthday, Roman’s school record had become absurd.
FOUNDATION KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCIES: COMPLETE FOR CURRENT CONSTELLATION
SELECTED INTERMEDIATE KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCIES: PASSED
PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT: AGE-APPROPRIATE WITH IRREGULAR ADVANCEMENT
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT: IMPROVING
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: HIGHLY ACTIVE / SELECTIVELY AVOIDANT
ATTENDANCE: NONSTANDARD UNDER APPROVED INDIVIDUAL CONSTELLATION
DISCIPLINARY INCIDENTS: THIRTY-TWO
SERIOUS SAFETY INCIDENTS: THREE
ACADEMIC FAILURE: NONE
The family could not honestly claim he was failing.
The Academy could not honestly claim ordinary scheduling worked.
Roman could not honestly claim every skipped lesson had been useless.
He had missed things.
A Foundation class created a communal garden through weekly care. Roman joined near the end and discovered everyone else had memories attached to plants he had not helped grow.
Céleste refused to give him one of the strawberries.
“You weren’t here.”
“I can pay.”
“No.”
“Trade.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Ours.”
The word had no loophole.
Roman looked at the garden.
Children had watered it.
Argued over rows.
Protected seedlings from frost.
Named one aggressive vine after Lord Harrow.
He had passed the plant-identification test.
He had not participated.
Knowledge competency had not created belonging.
He attended the remaining garden sessions.
No cameras.
White token.
He received one strawberry after helping remove glass mites from the roots.
It tasted ordinary.
He ate it slowly.
Another missed class involved a Foundation theatre game.
Roman assumed acting made it unnecessary.
The children were not performing for cameras.
They invented a story together, taking turns changing the plot.
Roman attempted to control continuity.
The others rejected him.
Céleste introduced a talking river.
Layla turned the river into a machine.
Hadrik made the machine afraid of birds.
The story became structurally offensive.
Roman tried to fix it.
The instructor stopped him.
“You control only your turn.”
The result made no professional sense.
It was fun.
Roman joined the next week.
He added a prince who attempted to buy the river.
The river charged him interest.
Mireya approved.
Not every lesson justified itself through future governance.
Some existed because childhood required experiences that could not be converted into credentials.
Roman began attending more selectively rather than less.
That was different from obedience.
It was choice informed by cost.
He stopped returning home regularly.
Not entirely.
Weekends at Duvall House continued.
Family dinners.
Council observation.
Foundation events.
Filming during approved breaks.
Mara’s recording beneath the silver-leaf tree.
Vesper divided her time without difficulty. Phoenixes considered both locations part of the First-Flame territory because Roman slept in both.
Maris adjusted more slowly.
She began visiting Ashwing on Wednesday evenings.
Not to retrieve him.
To have dinner.
The first time, she arrived carrying food from the Duvall kitchens because she distrusted Academy stew.
Agnes had packed enough for six.
Céleste appeared.
Then Mireya.
Then Layla.
Cassian entered from the older hall after Crownball practice.
The room became a family table without being home.
Maris watched Roman argue with Céleste over honey bread, Mireya explain lantern leases and Layla dismantle a broken warming plate beside her meal.
Something in her eased.
Rookspire had not replaced House Duvall.
It had expanded the number of people who expected Roman to return.
That was more frightening in one way.
Safer in another.
Love distributed created more possible grief.
It also created more places to survive.
Lucien visited once.
He spent forty minutes inspecting the home gate, ten discussing curriculum with Doctor Rook and three at Roman’s bedside.
“You are difficult to govern,” he said.
Roman sat beneath his blanket with Vesper on the perch.
“Good?”
“No.”
“Useful?”
“Sometimes.”
Lucien placed the school decision ledger beside him.
Roman had filled more than half.
Some entries remained honest.
Others used creative accounting.
Lucien read one.
WHAT I WANTED: Monster-economics class.
WHAT I DID: Left table manners.
WHAT IT COST: Missed fish fork lesson.
WHO PAID: Future fish.
Lucien looked at him.
“That is not an acceptable cost analysis.”
“Don’t like fish.”
“The cost is not the fish.”
“What?”
“You made Vivienne prepare a lesson you abandoned.”
Roman looked toward the page.
Labor.
Again.
People paying beneath visible inconvenience.
He corrected it.
WHO PAID: Vivienne’s time.
Lucien nodded.
“Better.”
No praise beyond that.
Valuable.
Gideon regained limited movement authority four months before Roman’s fifth birthday.
Maris imposed conditions.
No underground markets.
No gambling halls.
No evidence rooms.
No equipment gifts.
No lessons involving locks, odds, smuggling, bribes, false identities, surveillance evasion or “general entrepreneurial instinct.”
Gideon accepted.
Then attended a public Rookspire Crownball match.
He sat beside Maris in the family gallery.
Roman played field caller for Blue Team.
The opposing side had a stronger scorer.
Roman used Céleste’s illusions to pull defense high, Mireya’s timing to control passes and Hadrik’s stone affinity to stabilize the center.
They won by one coordination point.
Gideon applauded.
Afterward, he met Roman outside the locker corridor.
“No gift,” Gideon said.
Maris watched from six feet away.
Roman looked at his empty hands.
“Bad uncle.”
“I brought advice.”
“Worse.”
Gideon crouched.
“The Harbor Ghost relay was obsolete.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“You knew?”
“I knew one disk was missing after Corven’s inventory.”
“You didn’t give.”
“No.”
“You didn’t stop.”
“I wanted to know what you would do.”
Maris’s expression became lethal.
Gideon continued quickly.
“I also informed Corven after the first documentary reroute.”
Roman stared.
The stolen tool had never been fully secret.
His uncle had allowed the experiment until risk became visible.
“Why?”
“You learn more from a real door than a painted one.”
“I got punishment.”
“Yes.”
“Lost relay.”
“Yes.”
“Team points.”
“Tragic.”
Roman looked toward Maris.
She had not known Gideon’s complete involvement.
Good.
He would suffer later.
Gideon lowered his voice.
“Your mistake was not theft.”
Maris stepped closer.
“Choose the next sentence carefully.”
He ignored her.
“Your mistake was using a tool whose owner understood it better than you.”
Roman considered.
“Next time build.”
Gideon smiled.
Maris took Roman’s hand.
“This conversation is over.”
As she led him away, Gideon called:
“Happy early birthday.”
No gift.
Still a lesson.
Still corrupting.
Reliably Gideon.
Roman’s fifth birthday approached beneath two competing plans.
Maris wanted a family observance at Duvall House.
Rookspire wanted a small Ashwing celebration because his classmates considered him resident enough to claim part of the day.
Cassiel wanted a documentary special.
Doctor Rook rejected live birthday broadcasting.
Roman agreed.
Public attention had already consumed his third and fourth birthdays.
Five belonged partly to people who knew him without needing a screen.
The compromise divided the day.
Morning at Rookspire.
Evening at home.
No noble court.
No commercial premiere.
No political gifts opened publicly.
The Academy celebration began after Foundation lessons.
Roman attended every assigned class that morning.
This alarmed everyone.
Master Pellin checked whether he was ill.
Instructor Vale examined the attendance seal twice.
Ilyra took his temperature.
Roman endured it.
At noon, Ashwing students gathered in the residential common room.
No witness motes.
Black tokens hung from the doors.
Céleste brought a cake that leaned visibly left.
She claimed she had made it.
A Valecourt cook had probably prevented it from becoming poisonous.
Mireya gave Roman a revised version of the six-legged supply case, smaller and fireproof.
Layla gave him a set of hand tools with each sharp edge protected by age wards.
Hadrik gave him a stone from his family quarry that became warm when placed near an unstable foundation.
Perrin attended from the older hall and presented a solar practice disk.
Not intimate.
Not hostile.
Progress.
Cassian brought no gift.
He had saved his for Duvall House.
Instead, he wore the Host’s Companion pin from Roman’s third birthday.
“Old,” Roman said.
“Still works.”
“For party only.”
“This is party.”
Correct.
Cassian organized the games.
One-third control, negotiated two years earlier.
He remembered.
Roman did too.
The main game involved an unauthorized curriculum hunt created by the children.
Teachers volunteered clues.
Students crossed approved classrooms solving practical problems.
No security chase.
No restricted corridors.
No stolen access.
The entire rebellion converted into a sanctioned school event.
Roman hated how much he enjoyed it.
The final clue led to the Foundation garden.
The communal plot he had nearly missed.
Five candles stood around the aggressive vine named Harrow.
The vine attempted to eat one.
Céleste slapped it with a gardening glove.
Roman blew out the remaining four.
Vesper relit them.
Tradition.
He used Quiet Channel before extinguishing them again.
His resonance closed.
No accidental gravity.
No phoenix response.
All five remained dark.
A small achievement.
No system announcement.
No title.
The children applauded anyway.
That felt different.
Quieter.
Less intoxicating.
More difficult to dismiss.
The evening celebration at Duvall House took place beneath the silver-leaf tree.
Family only.
Mostly.
Cassiel arrived without invitation and was turned away at the eastern gate.
He sent flowers shaped like recording lenses.
Agnes placed them in a room facing the wall.
Gideon gave Roman a legal gift this time.
A sealed black notebook.
No lockpicks.
No relay devices.
No hidden gaming markers.
The cover read:
PLANS THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST YET
Maris inspected every page.
Blank.
She allowed it.
Vivienne gave him an advanced etiquette set and informed him that auditing servant administration did not excuse placing elbows on formal tables.
Alaric gave him a child-sized practice staff approved for gravity training.
Sabine gave him a preserved monster eye.
Doctor Vey confiscated it before dinner.
Helena gave him shares in the lower-cost Bellafont phoenix lantern program, held through his trust.
Lucien gave him a second ledger.
Thicker.
The columns differed.
WHAT I KNEW
WHAT I ASSUMED
WHAT I MISSED
WHAT CHANGED MY MIND
Roman looked toward him.
“Worse gift.”
“More necessary.”
“Can leave blank.”
“You can.”
“Then—”
“Only if you prefer being fooled by yourself.”
The same trap.
Improved.
Maris waited until last.
She gave him a small key.
Not magical.
Ordinary black iron.
Roman turned it in his fingers.
“What?”
“Your room.”
“At home?”
“Yes.”
“It already opens.”
“Servants’ keys open it. Household authority opens it. Mine opens it.”
She touched the key.
“This one allows you to set a private hour each day. No servants enter unless there is danger. No family enters without knocking and waiting.”
Roman looked at her.
A room at Duvall House that acknowledged he lived partly elsewhere now.
Privacy not created through escape.
Granted through trust.
“Corven agreed?”
“No.”
“Lucien?”
“Eventually.”
“Agnes?”
“She designed the emergency override.”
Of course.
Roman closed his hand around the key.
“Thank you.”
A real one.
Maris heard the difference.
She sat beside him beneath the tree.
“You are still required to come home.”
“Sometimes.”
“Regularly.”
“Yes.”
“You are not moving permanently into Ashwing.”
“Not yet.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Roman.”
He leaned against her.
The negotiation could continue later.
That too was growth.
After dinner, Roman opened the new ledger.
Vesper rested above him.
The family spoke quietly beyond the silver branches.
He wrote.
WHAT I KNEW: I could pass the tests.
WHAT I ASSUMED: Passing made the classes unnecessary.
WHAT I MISSED: Some lessons were the other people.
His pencil stopped.
The final column waited.
WHAT CHANGED MY MIND: Being left out of the garden.
He disliked how childish the answer looked.
That made it accurate.
On the next page:
WHAT I KNEW: Cameras reward escape.
WHAT I ASSUMED: Attention belonged to whoever could take it.
WHAT I MISSED: Other children copied what received attention.
WHAT CHANGED MY MIND: Someone got hurt.
Another:
WHAT I KNEW: Maris could take me home.
WHAT I ASSUMED: If she did not, I won.
WHAT I MISSED: She was choosing trust, not losing authority.
WHAT CHANGED MY MIND: She came to dinner at Ashwing.
He closed the ledger.
Five years old.
Still class-locked.
Still bloodline-obscured.
Still clever enough to bypass systems and young enough to misunderstand what the bypass removed.
Rookspire had failed to make him obedient.
House Duvall had failed to keep him contained.
The documentary had failed to turn every private part of him into product.
Those were not failures he regretted.
The school had done something more irritating.
It had given consequences names other than punishment.
Absence.
Influence.
Labor.
Belonging.
Trust.
Roman opened Gideon’s black notebook.
PLANS THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST YET
He wrote the first one.
Build my own documentary relay. Legal this time.
Then paused.
Added:
Mostly legal.
Vesper looked down from the branch.
“Don’t tell.”
The phoenix produced seven quiet notes.
Agreement remained uncertain.
Beyond the conservatory, the home gate waited to return him to Rookspire after the weekend.
Two homes.
Two sets of rules.
Hundreds of doors.
Roman no longer intended to run through all of them merely because security followed.
Only the interesting ones.