The tension in the room snapped like a dry twig, replaced by a wave of pure, exuberant relief. Arin and Lysa didn't just walk over; they practically tackled me into my chair.
"Father!" Arin crowed, vibrating with excitement. "The way his eye twitched when you said 'Hyper-Saturation'! I thought he was going to cry. You've defeated a high-ranking Imperial officer with nothing but a teapot and a dream of damp rocks!"
"It was a masterclass in psychological deterrence," Lysa added, her voice filled with rare, sparkling pride as she began to meticulously pour the tea the Courier had abandoned. "You didn't just hide the truth; you made the truth so painful to listen to that he fled from it. Observation: The sword is mighty, but the lecture is absolute."
Avaris walked over, leaning against the table with a tray of honey-biscuits. She looked at me, her eyes softening into that warm, dangerous glow I loved. "You have a terrifying brain, Ilyas. Truly. To take a peace offering and turn it into a weapon of mass boredom... I almost felt sorry for him. Almost." She nudged my shoulder playfully. "But don't get too arrogant, my Master of Mud. You still have to do the dishes."
We sat for dinner, the mood lighter than it had been in months. We ate thick stew and shared the "Imperial" tea, laughing as Arin reenacted the Grey Cloak's panicked exit. For a few hours, we weren't a family of fugitives and anomalies—we were just the Vernes.
The Riddle in the Dark
Later, as the house settled into a deep, moonlit silence, Avaris and I lay in the dark of our room. The adrenaline of the day had faded into a soft ache in my bones. I turned on my side, looking at the sharp silhouette of her profile against the window.
"Avaris?" I whispered.
"Mmm?"
"I've been thinking. About the Grey Cloak today. You didn't hesitate. You stood in the kitchen, ready to face him, bold as brass. But... I remember when the Merchant came to our gate months ago. You hid. You didn't just stay out of sight; you became a ghost. Why him, and not the man with the Imperial seal?"
Avaris didn't answer for a long moment. The only sound was the rhythmic shick-shick of a leaf brushing the windowpane. When she finally spoke, her voice was a low, melodic riddle.
"The Grey Cloak is a new hound, Ilyas," she said softly. "He has a shiny collar and a loud bark, but he only knows the scents he was taught in the Imperial kennel. To him, I am just the Architect's wife. He doesn't know what to look for, so he sees nothing."
She turned her head, her eyes catching a glint of moonlight.
"But the Merchant... the Merchant doesn't hunt for the Empire. He hunts for the things the Empire is too blind to see. Some men carry maps of lands, Ilyas, but some men carry maps of people. If I had stepped into his light, he wouldn't have seen a housewife. He would have recognized a signature in my stride that hasn't been seen in the North for ten years."
"You mean he knew you? From before?" I pressed.
She let out a soft, mysterious breath of a laugh and pulled the quilt higher. "Let's just say that in a world of grey stones, some people are looking for the gems, and some are looking for the bloodstains on the gravel. The Grey Cloak is a soldier; the Merchant is a memory. And memories are far more dangerous than swords."
She reached out under the covers, finding my hand and squeezing it tight. "Sleep now, my Architect. You've handled the hound. Let's hope the hunter stays on the road."
The mystery of Avaris's past deepens, and the Merchant's shadow suddenly feels much longer than the Grey Cloak's.
This was the classic "Architect's Backfire." I had played the part of the boring scholar so well that the Empire didn't just believe me—they decided to turn my fake disaster into a public works project.
The letter from Principal Albrecht arrived via a very sweaty, very panicked messenger boy. I opened it at the breakfast table, and the ink practically screamed off the page.
Verne, you absolute madman,
The Grey Cloak didn't just flee. He went to the Regional Command. He reported that the Academy is a "Geological Liability." They've ordered a Full Soil Excavation of your garden and the West Wing to find this "Hyper-Saturation." They're bringing shovels, Ilyas. Heavy ones. If they dig four feet down, they won't find wet silt—they'll find your secret cellar.
Think of something. FAST.
— Albrecht.
dropped the letter into my porridge. "Avaris... we have a problem. My 'boring' lie was so effective that the Empire is sending a construction crew to dig up our secrets."
Avaris didn't even blink. She just sharpened a kitchen knife with a rhythmic zip-zip sound. "Well, you wanted to be the 'Master of Mud.' It looks like the mud is coming to you."
I stared at Albrecht's letter, my heart doing a strange rhythmic thumping against my ribs.
"Shovels," I muttered. "They're bringing shovels to find the 'Hyper-Saturation' I made up."
Avaris looked over my shoulder, her eyes scanning the frantic ink. "Ilyas, we don't have a secret cellar. We have a root cellar for potatoes and a crawlspace for the plumbing. What is he talking about?"
"He's not talking about what we have," I said, my mind finally clicking into gear. "He's talking about what the Empire thinks we have. If they dig four feet down in the garden, they won't find a room. They'll find the Imperial Signal Conduit—the old brass telegraph lines that run directly under our property to the Academy."
I realized the danger instantly. If the soldiers started digging to find "wet dirt," they would stumble upon the main communication lines. If they saw those lines had been tampered with—or even if they just saw how close our house was to the Empire's "nervous system"—the "Boring Architect" facade would crumble. They'd think I was a spy tapping their wires.
"Ilyas," Avaris said, her voice dropping to that dangerous whisper. "If they find those lines, it doesn't matter how boring you are. They'll hang us first and ask about the silt later."
The Academy Front: The Boring Quartet
While I was panicking over dirt, Arin, Lysa, Cyrus, and Mira were sitting on a stone bench near the training field. They were surrounded by a dozen shovels leaning against the wall—the tools for the "Excavation."
"Look at them," Cyrus whispered, nodding toward the guards. "They're excited. They think they're going to find a 'geological anomaly' at your house, Arin."
"They're going to find my father's old collection of petrified wood," Arin replied, keeping his voice flat and monotone. "It's very heavy. And very dusty. I hope they enjoy carrying it."
Lysa was watching the Grey Cloak, who was talking to the lead excavator. Her eyes narrowed. She noticed the man wasn't holding a shovel; he was holding a Long-Range Resonance Stake—a device used to find hollow spaces underground.
"They aren't looking for wet soil," Lysa signaled to the others, her fingers tapping a rhythm on her lunch tin. "They're looking for voids. They think Father is hiding something beneath the floors."
"We have to stop them," Mira breathed, her "boring" mask slipping for a fraction of a second. "If they use that stake at the house..."
The Counter-Measure: The "Miasma" Diversion
I rushed to the Academy, arriving just as the first wagon of soldiers was preparing to leave.
"Principal! Stop!" I screamed, waving my charcoal-smeared papers. "You mustn't dig! I've just finished the thermal-expansion calculations!"
The Grey Cloak looked at me with a face of pure, unadulterated loathing. "Verne. If you say the word 'silt' one more time, I will have you put in stocks."
"It's not silt!" I cried, acting as if I were about to have a nervous breakdown. "It's Sub-Surface Methane! The moisture in the West Wing has trapped a pocket of swamp gas beneath the Academy's foundation and my garden! If you strike the earth with a metal shovel, the spark will... well... let's just say the 'Hyper-Saturation' will become a 'Hyper-Combustion'!"
I looked at the Resonance Stake in the lead excavator's hand.
"And that device!" I pointed at it, trembling. "The ultrasonic vibrations! It's like ringing a dinner bell for a gas explosion! You'll level the West Wing and my kitchen in one go!"
Albrecht, catching on to the "telegraph line" danger, immediately turned pale—partly from acting, partly from real fear. "Combustion? In the student dorms? Courier, we must halt! We need a 'Volatile Gas Audit' immediately!"
The Grey Cloak looked at his pristine boots, then at the training field, then at me. He looked like a man who wanted to scream, but the "logic"—the terrifying, boring, chemical logic—was too dangerous to ignore.
The digging has stopped... for now