The tension at the table was so thick you could have used it to reinforce a bridge.
I sat there, gripping my spoon with the intensity of a man holding a lifeline. My mind was a mess. Future Nine had already been discarded; I was currently on Future Twelve, which involved us all moving to the mountains and pretending to be goats.
"So," I said, my voice cracking slightly. I cleared my throat and tried to sound like a Patriarch. "The man in the grey cloak. You say he was... counting? Did he have a proper ledger, or was it one of those budget Imperial notebooks? The binding on those is atrocious."
Arin swallowed a massive piece of potato. "Proper leather, Father. Very expensive. He looked at me, looked at his book, sighed, and then did a little 'minus-one' gesture with his finger."
"A minus-one," I repeated. I looked at Avaris. She was staring at her stew as if she were trying to decide whether to eat it or use it as a smoke screen for our escape.
"Maybe he was counting his regrets," Avaris suggested, her voice dry as bone. "I hear the Empire has a surplus of those."
"I told him I was a scholar's son," Arin continued, waving his spoon for emphasis. "I told him that if he wanted to count something interesting, he should look at my father's collection of irrigation treaties. I told him they were so dull they could be used as a non-lethal sedative."
"You... you told him that?" I asked, feeling a strange mix of pride and professional insult.
"I had to, Father! It was for our protection!" Arin said, his eyes wide with mock-innocence. "He looked at me with so much pity that I think he almost gave me a copper. He definitely doesn't think we're 'the numbers' he's looking for. He thinks we're just... sad."
Lysa sighed, a sound of pure, ten-year-old exhaustion. "He actually pretended to trip over his own feet while saying it. It was embarrassing. I had to pretend I didn't know him."
"It was a tactical stumble!" Arin protested. "It lowered his guard!"
"You fell into a puddle, Arin."
"A tactical puddle!"
I looked at my wife. The 'Vigilant Sentry' was still there, but her left eyebrow was twitching—a sure sign that she was caught between 'Preparing for War' and 'Giving Arin a Time-Out.'
"Well," I said, trying to reclaim some dignity. "As long as the Imperial Logistics Division thinks we are a family of pathetic, irrigation-obsessed clods, I suppose we are winning."
"We are very winning," Arin agreed, reaching for the bread. "I'm so winning that I think I deserve a second helping of stew. All that 'clumsiness' burns a lot of energy."
Avaris finally let out a long, slow breath. She reached out and ruffled Arin's hair—part affection, part checking for hidden head wounds.
"Eat," she said. "But if you 'tactically' spill that stew on your clean shirt, Arin, there is no Future Thirteen that saves you from the laundry tub."
The dinner table returned to a semblance of normalcy—or at least, the Verne version of it, where the children are too smart, the parents are too paranoid, and the stew is just a bit too salty because the cook was busy checking the perimeter.
I found Avaris in the parlor, standing by the window. She was a silhouette against the moonlight, her back so straight it looked painful. She was staring at the lane as if she expected the Academy's Practical Instructor to come marching through the gate with a warrant for Arin's arrest.
"Avaris?" I said, stepping softly into the room.
She didn't move. "They're watching him, Ilyas. The school. The teachers. They see the way he moves, even when he tries to hide it. I came here so they wouldn't have to look at us. I came here because a scholar's life is supposed to be… quiet."
I walked over and stood beside her.
"Avaris, it's just a school," I said, reaching for her hand. Her fingers were cold, curled as if ready to strike. I took them gently in mine, pulling them open. "I know it feels like a battlefield to you, but these are just men in robes who are confused by a boy who is better at math than they are. They aren't the Empire. They aren't the shadows you... well, the shadows you seem to see everywhere."
She looked at me then, her eyes searching mine. I am just a Master of Irrigation. I spend my days arguing about water-flow and ancient history. To her, I must seem like a man standing in the middle of a thunderstorm without an umbrella, completely unaware that he's getting wet.
"You're so certain," she whispered.
"I'm a scholar, Avaris. We are very good at being certain about things we don't fully understand," I said with a small smile. "But I know the Academy. They don't want trouble. They want to drink their tea and talk about the 'good old days.' If Arin is a bit 'extraordinary,' they'll just call him a genius and give him more homework. They won't send for the Emperor."
I pulled her into a hug. I felt her tension—that strange, vibrating energy she always carried—and I just held her. I was the anchor. I was the ordinary, boring man she had chosen when she came to this village, and I was going to do my job.
"We are safe, Avaris. I'm a Master at the Academy. I have tenure. That's practically a shield of invincibility in the world of bureaucracy."
She let out a breath, and for the first time that night, she relaxed against me. She didn't stay long—she was never one for long displays of emotion—but the edge was gone.
"You and your tenure," she muttered into my chest, a hint of her usual dry humor returning. "Go to bed, Ilyas. I'll be up in a moment."
"Don't worry about the floorstones," I said, kissing her forehead. "I'll handle the Principal. I'll bore him to death with a lecture on crop rotation until he forgets Arin even exists."
She actually smiled at that. A real one. "I believe you could, Scholar. I truly do."
I left her there, feeling a bit better. I didn't know about her past, and I didn't know why she was so afraid of the world seeing her children. But I knew that as long as I stayed "The Ordinary Scholar," I could give her the peace she came here to find.