Chapter 108: The Network of Notice
Finn's success was a quiet revolution. It proved the principle: the work was not for mages or warriors alone, but for anyone willing to pay a certain kind of attention. The knowledge spread through Anchor not as a proclamation, but as a subtle, practical folklore. Finn taught his father, Hal, the grounding technique when the old man's shoulders would knot with the weight of the inn's worries. Hal, in turn, showed his cook how to shake off the creeping sense of monotony by focusing on the exact sizzle of onions in the pan. The net-mender, whose fingers had faltered, learned from Lyra's patient, wordless demonstration to see the repair not as a forgotten whole, but as a series of small, known actions loop, pull, tighten.
