The sun hadn't even cleared the treeline when I heard the floorboards creak outside our bedroom. I lay still, my conversation with Avaris still echoing in my mind. She was already gone, likely in the garden tending to the "soil," but the footsteps in the hall were too heavy to be hers and too rhythmic to be a ghost's.
I sat up, rubbed my face, and opened the door.
Arin and Lysa were standing there in their nightshirts. Arin was holding a small, silver-tipped compass I had "lost" months ago, and Lysa had her head tilted, her eyes narrowed like she was trying to see through my ribcage.
"Father," Lysa said, her voice unnervingly flat for a child. "We heard you talking last night. To Mother."
"Ah! Eavesdropping? That's a 2 out of 10 on the behavior scale," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. "I was just... discussing the history of our marriage. Very romantic stuff. You'd find it incredibly dull."
"You weren't talking about romance," Arin said. He stepped forward, and I realized he was standing in that "Anchored" way Avaris does—perfectly balanced. "You were asking about the past. You told her you know."
I felt a cold prickle on my neck. "I know many things, Arin. I know that silt is 50% more absorbent than clay. I know that the 232 tax ledgers—"
"Stop it," Lysa interrupted. She walked past me into the bedroom and pointed at the stack of blueprints on my nightstand—the ones I'd brought home from the library. "You found the sensor maps. You didn't just 'stumble' onto them. You went looking. And you didn't tell us."
"I was worried!" I protested. "I'm your father. It's my job to—"
"No," Arin said, his eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp intelligence. "You're doing it again. You're playing the 'Helpful, Clumsy Scholar.' But Lysa and I have been talking. No one is that obsessed with dirt, Father. No one spends six hours a day studying irrigation unless it's a cover for something else."
I blinked. "A cover? For what? I genuinely love irrigation!"
"That's what a master spy would say," Arin whispered. He looked at the Wooden Spoon sitting on the dresser. "The spoon, the percolation theory, the way you 'accidentally' teach us exactly what we need to know to hide from the Empire... We think you're the one running the whole operation. We think you're the 'Ghost Architect' the Northern rebels used to talk about."
I stared at my eight-year-old son. He thought I was a legendary spy. He thought my passion for sub-soil drainage was a high-level code for revolutionary tactics.
"Children," I said, trying to find my voice. "I am a man who gets excited by the pH balance of a puddle. I assure you, there is no 'Ghost Architect.' I'm just... Ilyas."
"That's exactly what the Architect would say," Lysa noted, tapping her chin. "The perfect camouflage isn't a mask. It's a personality so boring that no one bothers to look deeper. You've been using us as your front, haven't you? Making us think we were the ones hiding, while you managed the 'Grey Cloaks' from the library."
I looked at their faces—serious, suspicious, and entirely convinced that their father was a genius. It was the most flattering and terrifying thing that had ever happened to me.
"Wait," I said, a thought striking me. "If you think I'm a spy, then why did you help me with the silt experiment on Sunday?"
"We thought it was a briefing!" Arin exclaimed. "We thought the sand was a map of the Imperial Border! We've been waiting for you to give us our 'real' missions."
The irony was overwhelming. While I was worried about my children being secret soldiers, my children were worried that I was a secret Mastermind.
Avaris's voice drifted up from the garden, clear and sharp. "Ilyas? Are the children up? The 'boring' breakfast is ready!"
Arin and Lysa shared a look. "She's in on it too," Lysa whispered. "The 'General' and the 'Architect.' The ultimate power couple."
They turned and walked toward the stairs, leaving me standing in the doorway clutching a blue folder. I realized then that I couldn't convince them I was "just a scholar" anymore. Every time I taught them about dirt, they were going to look for a hidden meaning.
I looked at my hands. Am I that good at being boring? Or is the world just that dangerous that 'boring' looks like a conspiracy?
I sat at the head of the heavy oak table, feeling the weight of four very intense eyes boring into my skull. Usually, breakfast was a time for me to lecture about the fascinating porosity of limestone, but today, the atmosphere was thick with a different kind of "theoretical" energy.
Arin and Lysa weren't eating. They were observing.
"The bread has a very specific char pattern today, Father," Arin said, leaning in until his nose almost touched the crust. He held the slice up to the morning light, which filtered through our thick, leaded-glass windows. "Three dark lines on the left, one on the right. Is this the 'Grid Coordinate' for the Northern pass?"
"It's a piece of bread, Arin," I replied, carefully scraping the excess carbon off with a dull knife. "It sat on the hearth-grate a moment too long because I was distracted by the rainfall charts. There is no map in the burnt crust."
"A classic 'Disposable Cipher,'" Lysa whispered to Arin, loud enough for me to hear. She turned her gaze to me, her eyes as sharp as the flint used to spark our morning fire. "Father, we noticed you adjusted your spectacles three times since sitting down. Is that the signal for 'The coast is clear' or 'The courier is late'?"
"It's the signal for 'My nose is oily and my glasses are sliding,'" I sighed.
Avaris walked in from the hearth, carrying a blackened iron pot of porridge. She caught the tension immediately. She looked at me, then at the children, and I saw that wicked glint in her eyes—the one that usually meant she was about to make my life very complicated.
"Is the Architect ready for his morning briefing?" she asked, her voice dripping with mock-seriousness as she set the pot down on a thick trivet.
Arin's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Architect! You heard her, Lysa! She used the code name!"
"Avaris, please don't encourage them," I pleaded. "I spent all night trying to explain that my interest in sub-soil drainage is purely academic."
"Of course, darling," Avaris said, leaning down to kiss my cheek. As she did, she subtly moved my butter knife—a heavy, hand-forged piece of steel—to point exactly North-Northwest. "A very 'academic' interest. Just like how I 'academically' know forty-two ways to disable a man with a damp dishcloth."
Arin immediately pulled out a small scrap of parchment and a charcoal stick. "Knife positioned at the rising sun's angle. Signal confirmed. Father, I have the report from the 'Western Front'—also known as the Academy courtyard."
"Arin, it's just a courtyard with a few dead shrubs," I groaned, reaching for the milk pitcher.
"The 'Courtyard' had three new paving stones installed near the well," Arin continued, his eight-year-old face a mask of grim determination. "I tested the resonance by dropping my satchel. They aren't solid stone. They're hollow. Is that where we're dropping the encrypted ledgers?"
I stared at him. "They're probably just covers for the new drainage pipes, son. For the runoff."
Lysa narrowed her eyes. "Drainage? Or a hidden acoustic chamber for intercepting the Principal's whispers? It's a classic misdirection, Arin. He's good. He's very good."
I looked at my wife for help. She was leaning against the stone mantel, casually peeling a winter apple with a small paring knife. She peeled it in one single, perfect spiral—a feat of knife-work that made me realize, yet again, that I was the only person in this room who didn't know how to survive in the wild.
"Tell them about the 'Spoon Protocol,' Ilyas," Avaris prompted, a smirk playing on her lips.
"There is no 'Spoon Protocol'!" I shouted, perhaps a bit too loudly. "The Wooden Spoon is for stirring oats! It's a kitchen tool! It has no tactical significance!"
Arin swapped looks with Lysa. "He's denying the Spoon. That means the Spoon is the highest level of security. It's the 'Master Key,' isn't it? If we turn the handle three times against the grain of the table, does the floor slide away to reveal the map room?"
"The only thing under the floor is the foundation and my mounting frustration!" I cried out, throwing my hands up.
"The 'Foundation of Frustration,'" Lysa whispered, scribbling on the parchment. "Likely a code name for the hidden armory. Arin, we need to check the cellar for 'structural anomalies' tonight."
I slumped in my chair, defeated. My children thought I was a revolutionary mastermind, and my wife was the General enabling their delusions. Every move I made—every sneeze, every adjustment of my wool vest—was being decoded as a masterstroke of spycraft.
"I'm going to the library," I muttered, standing up and grabbing my leather satchel. "To work on the very real, very boring tax ledgers of 232. There are no secrets in tax records, I promise you."
"Good luck with the 'Ledgers,' Ghost Architect," Arin said, giving me a sharp, crisp military salute.
"Don't forget to 'percolate' through the shadows, Father," Lysa added, nodding solemnly as she sipped her tea.
As I walked out the heavy oak door, I heard Avaris laughing. It was a beautiful sound, but it was followed by her saying, "Alright, team, the Architect has departed. Let's begin 'Phase Two': Analyzing the residue in his tea cup for hidden symbols."
I walked down the cobblestone street, clutching my bag of boring papers, feeling like the most suspicious man in the ancient world—all because I loved my children enough to teach them about drainage.