The silence after the Lexicon's departure was more oppressive than the interrogation. Alex lived in a gilded cage, the bars made of watchful eyes. Guard Harrow seemed to have no other duty than to loiter near the carpenter's shop. A woman in a grey cloak was always at the market when he was there, her gaze a subtle, constant pressure. Oakhaven was no longer his home; it was his prison, and he was the main exhibit.
Frustration festered into a cold, sharp resolve. If they wanted to watch an anomaly, he would give them one they couldn't pin down.
His rebellion started small, in the dead of night. He began to practice. In the seclusion of his room, he'd focus on the simple Law of Thermal Conservation keeping a cup of tea warm. He learned that the "Null" command required not just will, but understanding. He had to mentally trace the flow of energy, find the conceptual knot that held the law together, and then pull the one loose thread. He graduated to the Law of Mend his mother used on torn clothes, carefully unpicking the magical stitches.
He was no longer just breaking things. He was learning the architecture of reality itself.
Then, he took his power to the streets. Old Man Hemlock's bakery oven, its Law of Contained Heat failing, was his first anonymous fix. He didn't rebuild the spell; he found its flaw and nudged it, a ghostly repair in the dark. The next morning, Hemlock was baffled but grateful, proclaiming it a miracle.
A miracle became a pattern. A child's toy horse, its Law of Animation broken, was found magically repaired on their doorstep. A dangerous pothole on a main street, which the town council had ignored for months, was mysteriously filled in Alex having nullified the Law of Erosion around it long enough for dirt and stone to settle permanently.
He was careful, a specter of solutions. He never showed himself. He worked on small, personal injustices that the rigid authorities deemed beneath their notice. The people, feeling unseen by the Law, began to see hope in the shadows.
A name was born in the whispers of the tavern and the gratitude of the helped. They didn't know who he was, only what he did. They called him the Oakhaven Ghost.
One evening, his father put down his carving knife and looked at him, his expression unreadable. "They're saying there's a spirit in the town. A ghost that fixes things." He held Alex's gaze. "A ghost that the Regulators can't catch."
Alex's heart hammered against his ribs. He said nothing.
Kael gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Be careful, son," he said, his voice low. "Even ghosts can be laid to rest."
The warning was clear. His father knew, or at least suspected. The cage was tightening. The Lexicon's experiment was reaching its climax, and Alex knew the next move would be the checkmate. The Ghost had to become more than just a rumor. He had to become a legend, or he would become a corpse.
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