The morning sun hit the kitchen table with a clarity that felt almost suspicious. I sat there, cradling my tea, watching the steam rise in perfect, predictable curls.
Avaris was in the kitchen, and for the first time in my life, I understood what "over-engineering" looked like in a culinary sense. She was humming a Northern tune, flipping pancakes with a focus she usually reserved for sharpening her daggers.
Arin leaned across the table, his voice a stage-whisper that probably reached the next province. "Father? Is the 'System Reboot' finished? Is Mother... okay now? She didn't try to feed you her napkin this morning, did she?"
I let out a quiet, playful chuckle and adjusted my spectacles, catching Avaris's eye as she turned around. "Oh, the structural integrity of your mother's heart is perfectly restored, Arin. She just realized that even a Master Architect needs a little extra 'reinforcement' sometimes. Think of it as a seasonal maintenance check—very thorough, slightly loud, but ultimately very stable."
Avaris walked over and dropped a stack of pancakes in front of me that could have served as a foundation for a small shed. "Eat, Master Architect," she teased, though her hand lingered on my shoulder a second longer than usual. "You have a lot of 'maintaining' to do today."
"Actually," I said, catching her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "I'm not going to the library today. I think I'll stay here and help you with the garden. The silt levels are... historically demanding today."
Avaris turned a lovely shade of pink, her eyes softening. She knew exactly why I was staying. "Ilyas Verne, you are the most ridiculous man in this province," she murmured, but she didn't pull her hand away.
The Academy: The Boredom Victory
Meanwhile, at the Academy, the reports I'd get later suggested a masterpiece of psychological warfare. My children were, quite frankly, outdoing their teacher.
Arin, Lysa, Cyrus, and Mira were lined up for tactical geography. According to Albrecht's later account, they stood with faces so blank they could have been carved from the very limestone they were supposed to be studying.
"And here," the instructor droned, pointing to a map of the Northern supply routes. "Arin? What is the most significant tactical feature of this road?"
Arin didn't even blink. "The gravel, sir. It's mostly crushed shale. It's very grey. If you walk on it too long, your boots get quite dusty. It's very... dusty."
The instructor apparently stared at him for a full ten seconds. He looked at Lysa, who was nodding in solemn agreement, and then at Cyrus and Mira, who were busy debating the average wingspan of a local pigeon.
The instructor let out a long, soul-crushing sigh. "I can't. I just can't today."
Even instructor Kael, the bright spark who usually looked for the hidden truth, was seen sitting on a bench with his head in his hands. He was tired. Tired of looking for secrets where there were only pebbles; tired of looking for spies where there was only silt.
The Departure
From my garden, later that morning, I was using my Aperture-Refractor, a custom-built surveying telescope I "coincidentally" had set up on a tripod to "measure the settling of the Academy's horizon line."
I adjusted my glasses and looked toward the Academy gates.
The Grey Cloak was leaving.
He didn't look back. He looked like a man who had been defeated not by a sword, but by a mountain of paperwork and the sheer, crushing weight of our "ordinariness." He was going back to the Capital, convinced that the Verne family was nothing more than a collection of boring people in a boring town.
I saw Principal Albrecht standing on his balcony in the distance. He raised a cup of tea toward our house—a silent, triumphant toast. The "Gas" worked. The "Silt" worked.
I turned back to the garden, where Avaris was waiting with a trowel. The pressure was gone. The hunter had fled.
"He's gone, Avaris," I said, stepping onto the fresh soil.
"Good," she said, handing me a packet of seeds. "Now, tell me more about that 'silt' you're so worried about. I find it... suddenly very interesting."
I laughed, the sound bright and free in the morning air. We had won.
The List in the Ledgers
The afternoon sun was beginning to slant across the porch when the gate creaked open. I was standing near the herb garden, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I wasn't measuring the distance to the nearest exit. I had my arms around Avaris, my face buried in the crook of her neck, simply enjoying the fact that she didn't smell like combat tension or woodsmoke for once.
"Ilyas," she whispered, her hands resting on my chest. "The children are coming."
"Let them," I murmured, refusing to let go. "I've been the 'Master of Silt' for three days straight. I'm taking a five-minute sabbatical as a husband."
A chorus of exaggerated, theatrical groans erupted from the driveway. I looked over my shoulder to see Arin, Lysa, Cyrus, and Mira standing in a row, all wearing various expressions of mock disgust.
"Oh, look," Arin cried, shielding his eyes with a dramatic hand. "The foundation of the house is collapsing! Father is leaning at a forty-five-degree angle! It's an architectural disaster!"
"Observation," Lysa added, her voice flat but her eyes sparkling. "The emotional humidity in the garden has reached 98%. Recommendation: Immediate evacuation to the kitchen before we are subjected to further 'lovey-dovey' structural anomalies."
"You four are late," I laughed, finally releasing Avaris, who was blushing a shade of red that would have put a Northern sunset to shame.
"We have a reason," Cyrus said, stepping forward with a serious expression. He held out a heavy, leather-bound crate and a sealed envelope. "Principal Albrecht caught us at the gate. He said these were 'outdated geological ledgers' that you needed to archive immediately. He seemed... very insistent."
The Hidden Audit
Inside, after the children had retreated to the kitchen to pillage the pantry, I sat at my desk and broke the seal on the envelope. Avaris stood behind me, her hand on my shoulder as I pulled out a single, thin sheet of Imperial parchment nestled between the dry, dusty pages of soil reports.
It wasn't a ledger. It was a Regional Discrepancy Watchlist, likely lifted from the Grey Cloak's desk during the "Gas Leak" chaos.
My eyes scanned the names. I wasn't there. Avaris wasn't there. Our "Boring" armor had held. But as I reached the top of the list—the number one priority for Imperial "re-education"—my breath hitched.
Priority 1: Old Man Hallow.
"Hallow?" Avaris whispered, leaning in. "Our neighbor? The one who yells at the clouds and threatened to sue you over a fence post three years ago?"
"The very same," I said, my mind instantly snapping back into its high-speed analytical mode. I pulled a map of the local properties from my drawer.
"He's a grumpy, miserable old man," I muttered, "but look at the Imperial notes next to his name: 'Potential Signal Interceptor. Repeated interference with the North-South Telegraph node. Possible Veteran of the Silent Siege.'"
"He's not just a neighbor," Avaris said, her voice turning sharp. "He's a ghost, just like us. And if he's number one on this list, the Grey Cloak didn't go back to the Capital because he gave up. He went back to get orders for a Full Property Seizure."
I looked out the window at the flickering light of Hallow's cabin on the hill. The old man was currently probably grumbling at a goat, completely unaware that the Empire's "nervous system" thought he was a surgical threat.
"The Grey Cloak thinks he's found the 'Ghost Architect' or the 'Sentry,'" I said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across my face. "He thinks he's finally found the secret. He's targeting Hallow because Hallow is the only thing in this town more annoying and 'suspicious' than my silt reports."
"What are you thinking, Ilyas?"
"I'm thinking," I said, picking up my drafting pen, "that it's time for the 'Boring Architect' to do some pro-bono work. If the Empire wants to hunt a ghost, let's give them one. We're going to save that grumpy old man, Avaris. Not because we like him—but because as long as the Empire is busy fighting Hallow's fence posts, they aren't looking at our cellar."
Old Man Hallow is in the crosshairs, and he has no idea. We have the list, the map, and a few hours before the next Imperial telegram arrives.