Three days after the hook on the wardline, the room stopped feeling like a bunker and started feeling like… a room again.
It surprised John when he noticed.
He woke to the scent of herbs and warm milk, the familiar scratch of Flint's snoring, the faint creak of wood as Doris shifted in her sleep. The wards hummed under everything—steady, padded—but the pitch no longer
made his shoulders bunch automatically.
He lay still a moment, listening.
Hum.
Pause.
Hum.
Pause.
Ordinary.
He almost smiled.
Then Brian sneezed.
It was a tiny, squeaky explosion, more startled than powerful.
He flailed both arms, eyes blinking open wide.
Doris surfaced from sleep like someone yanked out of deep
water.
"I'm up," she croaked, fumbling for him. "What happened? Is
it them?"
Her gaze flicked immediately to the door sigil, the corners
of her eyes tight.
John pushed himself upright. "Relax," he said. "He sneezed."
Brian sneezed again just to confuse the issue.
Doris sagged, then laughed weakly, pressing him to her chest. "You are not allowed to sound like an attack," she muttered into his
hair. "It's rude."
From the pallet, Flint mumbled, "Tell that to most of the mages here," and rolled over.
The door sigil pulsed slow and calm.
No hooks.
No spikes.
Just the tower reminding them it still existed.
Dorothy stirred in her chair, stretching carefully. "Good," she said. "You panicked less that time."
Doris shot her a look. "That was less?"
"Yesterday you almost set the cradle on fire grabbing him," Dorothy said. "Today you only startled. Improvement."
John swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You said we'd get used to it," he said.
"I said you'd get better at telling which jolts
matter," Dorothy corrected. "Not that you'd stop jumping at random noises. That takes years. Or head trauma."
Flint cracked one eye open. "Or both."
Breakfast arrived with the now-familiar soft knock and a tray that smelled of porridge and fruit and smug practicality.
Another note was tucked under the edge.
Doris picked it up while John took the tray.
The script was Halvar's. Again.
Family Aetheris,
The council believes a short, supervised visit to the gardens would benefit all parties. Fresh air, less cabin fever, fewer rumors that we keep you in chains.
If you feel up to it, present yourselves at the west stair after first bell. Warden escort provided. Garden wards adjusted.
If you do not feel up to it, ignore this and I will pretend I never suggested it.
— H.
Doris read it twice.
"Garden," she said slowly.
Brian gurgled at the word, as if he knew what it meant.
He didn't, of course.
But he had felt the garden wards once.
He'd gone quiet there, not overwhelmed. Just… listening.
John watched Doris's face.
Her eyes brightened at the thought of open sky, grass, something that wasn't stone and hum.
Then fear chased it.
"What if they try again?" she whispered. "Hooks. Threads. Whatever that was."
"Dorothy cut it," John said. "Halvar knotted the wall. Orane has her people crawling through drains. And the garden wards are thick to begin with."
Dorothy sipped her tea. "They're also more visible," she said. "If the Paragons try anything near an Academy garden, half the
sensitive students and three irritable professors will feel it. If we're going to test how your new ears work, doing it where everyone else is listening too is safer than in some empty corner."
Flint shrugged. "Also, if we never leave this room, the story becomes 'cursed family chained to a wardstone.' At least this way they'll see you sitting on a bench instead of in a ritual circle."
Doris sighed.
Her fingers toyed with Brian's blanket.
"I don't want him to grow up afraid of doors," she said quietly.
"Then we walk through one," John said. "Carefully. With too many guards. And a very dangerous old woman."
Dorothy tilted her head. "Flint's not that old."
He threw a crust at her and missed.
First bell had barely faded when they stepped into the corridor.
Two wardens waited at either end as usual.
Today there were four more.
Two fell in behind them, two ahead, their gait smooth, eyes watchful.
"Feels like we're escorting a royal caravan," Flint muttered.
"You are," one of the wardens said dryly. "Just smaller."
John's palm brushed the wall as they moved.
He felt the now-familiar layers: general lattice; corridor wards; Halvar's thicker buffer-knot around their section.
Nothing new.
No thin wrongness.
No hooks.
Doris walked beside him, Brian swaddled snug against her chest in the sling. One of her hands rested lightly on the stone opposite.
Her brow furrowed. "Someone spilled panic here yesterday," she murmured as they passed a particular door.
Flint snorted. "Can you smell it?"
"Feels like wind trapped in a jar," she said. "Sharp. Tiny. Not the same as last night. Just… someone's fear."
"Probably a novice who failed a test," Dorothy said. "We don't burn those."
They descended the west stair.
The air grew cooler, less saturated with the tight pulses of residential wards. Instead, a broader hum seeped in—one John remembered from their first escorted trip to the garden days ago, when everything had still felt like a trap disguised as a courtyard.
Now he took a moment to feel it properly.
Different from the indoor lattice.
Looser.
Not weaker.
More like… a net spread wide instead of a blanket tucked tight.
At the base of the stair, another warden waited, along with Kael and Master Archivist Lyr.
Lyr's copper-capped braid looked the same as in the Stacks—heavy and practical. Today, though, she had a shawl thrown over her
shoulders, its edges embroidered with tiny ward marks that shifted when the light caught them.
"Good," she said, looking them over. "You're upright. That'll make this easier."
"Easier than what?" Flint asked suspiciously.
"Than dragging you out by your ears when you start growing moss," Lyr said. "Gardens are for more than anxious students. Come." She waved a hand. "I want to see if the trees behave."
Kael ducked his head. "I was assigned to 'escort,'" he said. "Which I choose to interpret as 'get some fresh air before the next disaster.'"
"Consider this remedial training," Dorothy said. "You're going to be our test canary."
Kael grimaced. "You're not inspiring confidence."
"Good," Dorothy said. "You'll pay more attention."
The garden was smaller than John remembered from the road.
Of course it was.
The caravan had carried whole horizons with it.
This was a contained space, walled and warded, no wider than a few houses laid side by side and no longer than a small field. But within those limits, whoever designed it had done their best to cheat.
Paths wound in a way that made the place feel bigger than it was. Beds of herbs and flowers filled the air with scent. Trees stretched their
branches overhead, leaves trembling faintly with every passing breeze.
The garden wards hummed differently from the tower's stone.
Higher.
Lighter.
There was a crispness to them, like the sensation of stepping into cold water where air had been.
Doris paused at the threshold, eyes closing briefly.
"Three layers," she murmured.
"Good," Dorothy said. "Name them."
"Outer lattice," Doris said. "Same as the walls, just… shaped to the garden's edges instead of the whole tower. Inner web between the
trees—less about keeping things out, more about guiding what lives here. And a third…" She frowned, focusing. "Something like… a veil? Thin. Close to the ground. Moving with the plants."
"Root ward," Lyr said behind them. "Keeps certain aggressive species from eating their neighbors. Or the soil. Or the occasional unwary novice."
Flint blinked. "You have plants that eat soil?"
"Everything eats something," Lyr replied. "We just prefer it not be the foundations."
John stepped forward, letting the garden's hum wash over him.
He could feel the first two layers—the broader lattice, the inner web that ran between tree trunks and over flowerbeds. The third was
fainter, like a vibration his bones hadn't quite learned to hear yet.
Brian stirred in his sling.
His tiny fingers flexed against Doris's robe.
His head turned toward the nearest tree.
The leaves rustled, though there was no breeze.
Doris froze.
"Dorothy—"
"I feel it," Dorothy said.
She stepped past them into the garden proper, staff tapping once on the stone, once on the soil.
The wards reacted—noisy in a way John hadn't noticed before, small pulses of alert running along the edges.
"It's not a hook," Dorothy said after a moment. "Calm. The wards are… curious."
"Curious," Flint repeated. "That's a terrible adjective for walls to have."
"They've noticed him before," Lyr said, ambling in after them. "They remember. Plants, too. They'll lean."
"Lean how?" John asked.
"You'll see," Lyr said.
They followed the main path to a low stone bench beneath a spreading tree with silver-veined leaves.
The last time they'd sat here, Brian had been only a few days old and half the garden had reacted like it had heard a new bell.
Today, the reaction was subtler.
Leaves turned.
Not all at once.
Not in a dramatic sweep.
Just little adjustments, one after another, like heads turning in a crowd.
Branches angled themselves so that more leaves faced toward the bench.
A cluster of pale blue flowers near the path's edge shifted, petals opening wider.
Kael shivered. "They're… watching," he said.
"They're paying attention," Dorothy said. "There's a difference. When the Paragons look at him, it feels like hands reaching. This
is closer to a herd animal noticing a new sound."
"That's supposed to be comforting?" Flint asked.
"Compared to zealots touching wardlines?" Dorothy said. "Yes."
Doris sat on the bench, easing Brian into her lap. She turned so her back touched the tree's trunk. The bark thrummed faintly through
her shoulders.
"This one hums lower than the others," she said.
"Old root," Lyr said. "Planted when the tower was only three floors and the Empire still thought it could standardize rainfall."
Flint snickered. "They tried to standardize rain?"
"Briefly," Lyr said. "It didn't take."
Kael sat on the low wall opposite, keeping a respectful distance. His eyes flicked constantly between Brian, the tree, and the visible ward-lines glimmering faintly in the air.
"What do you feel?" Dorothy asked him.
He hesitated. "Like… a conversation I'm not fluent in," he said. "The wards are… asking? The tree is answering? And he's…" He nodded toward Brian. "He's humming in the same key but not singing. Yet."
Doris stroked Brian's hair. "And if the song goes wrong?" she asked.
"Then the leaves fall," Lyr said simply. "And we replant. That's what the garden is for—trying things where breaking them hurts less."
Doris flinched. "Talking about my son."
Lyr's gaze sharpened. "No," she said. "Talking about our wards. Your son is the weather that passes through them."
John sat beside Doris, placing his hand flat on the bench. The stone hummed under his palm—not as dense as tower foundations, not as thin as corridor walls. A middle place. A compromise.
Brian stared at the nearest leaf.
Not just in that unfocused baby way.
His eyes locked on one, a little crooked, a little torn at the edge.
His tiny brows drew in.
He lifted his hand.
The leaf trembled.
Not from wind.
From distance.
The vein down its center brightened faintly, silver streaking whiter.
Then, slowly, impossibly, the leaf's stem twisted.
The leaf turned on its branch—not toward the sun, not toward the general light of the garden.
Toward Brian.
Doris sucked in a breath.
John's hand tightened on the bench.
Dorothy's staff thudded once, warning.
"That," she said sharply, "is enough."
The leaf shivered.
The glow dimmed.
The branch sagged back into a more natural shape, though the leaf still faced the bench.
Brian's hand dropped, fingers fumbling instead for his own blanket.
He made a small, frustrated sound and kicked.
The leaf didn't move again.
"What was that?" Doris whispered.
"Resonance bleed," Dorothy said. "He didn't pull on the leaf. He tugged the ward-thread that runs through the tree. It's the same
thing that happens when a mage tries to coax more light into a lantern. Only he's doing it to a living thing instead of glass."
"That's worse," Flint said.
"Not necessarily," Lyr said thoughtfully. "Better a leaf than a wall."
Kael's eyes were wide. "He didn't cry," he said. "Or scream. Or shake anything but the branch. That's… new."
"Good new or bad new?" John asked.
"Dangerous new," Dorothy said. "But quieter. Controlled, even if he doesn't know he's doing it."
Doris's arms tightened around Brian. "Is he hurting it?" she demanded. "The tree?"
"No," Lyr said. "If anything, he's feeding it. That leaf will outlive its brothers by a day or two." She snorted. "Congratulations. Your son has invented plant favoritism."
Flint huffed a laugh despite the tension.
The sound seemed to ease something in Doris's shoulders.
Brian, oblivious to the weight of their stares, discovered his own foot and grabbed it with both hands, fascinated.
The tree hummed quietly behind them.
The wards pulsed.
No hooks.
No alien wrongness.
Just attention.
Gentle.
Curious.
For the first time, the garden didn't feel like a place waiting to react to Brian.
It felt like a place reacting with him.
They stayed longer than John had expected.
Not because they forgot the danger—no one here forgot anything lately—but because for once, danger didn't come knocking.
Students passed along the outer paths, glancing over with varying degrees of subtlety.
Some stared openly.
Most pretended they weren't.
At one point, Vela appeared on the far balcony, flanked by two older students. Her expression went carefully neutral when she saw them. She didn't approach. She didn't have to. Her presence was a statement all on
its own.
Doris went stiff.
John felt the wards around their section of the garden thicken.
Dorothy didn't bother to hide her glare.
"Ignore her," Lyr said under her breath. "She's like mold. The more you feed her attention, the more she spreads."
"That's not how mold works," Flint said.
"It is in libraries," Lyr replied.
Kael watched Vela with narrowed eyes. "She's annoyed," he murmured.
"How can you tell from this far?" John asked.
"She holds her shoulders differently when she's pleased," Kael said. "Higher. Right now they're tense. Halvar must have said 'no' to
something again."
"Good," Doris said.
Vela lingered a little while, talking to her students, occasionally glancing their way. Eventually, Maevra appeared beside her, said
something sharp and brief, and Vela departed with a tight jaw.
Maevra stayed a moment longer, looking down into the garden.
Her gaze found the bench.
For a heartbeat, it felt as if the tree they sat under had decided to join the wards in watching.
Then Maevra inclined her head.
Not a bow.
Not a command.
Acknowledgment.
Then she turned away.
The breath John hadn't realized he was holding left him.
"Better than a lecture," Flint said.
"A short one," Dorothy corrected. "The long one will come later."
On their way back toward the tower door, something tugged at John's awareness.
Not a hook.
Not a spike.
A… itch.
He slowed.
"What?" Doris asked, tightening her hold on Brian.
"Here," John murmured, stepping off the path toward a cluster of low shrubs near the garden wall.
He put his hand out, not touching yet.
The air above the soil felt… prickly.
Like cobwebs in a corner.
"Don't step on that," Dorothy said sharply.
Lyr was there a heartbeat later, moving surprisingly fast for someone with that many years and responsibilities.
She crouched, peering at the ground.
At first John saw nothing.
Just soil.
A few fallen leaves.
A scrap of something pale half-buried.
Lyr brushed the dirt aside.
A small length of twine lay there, knotted in a pattern that made John's eyes hurt. Three little bits of bone were threaded through it, each etched with a tiny symbol.
One of them was the jagged crack Doris had described from her childhood stories.
The three dots sat beneath it.
Doris's hand flew to her mouth.
Flint swore.
Kael went very still.
"That," Dorothy said softly, "does not belong here."
Lyr picked up the twine with two fingers.
The wards in the garden hummed, uneasy.
Underfoot, the ground seemed to flinch.
"Old style," Lyr said. "Old pattern. New purpose."
"Paragons?" John asked.
"Or some idiot who thinks playing with cult toys is clever," Lyr said. "Either way, it's pollution."
Doris's voice shook. "It feels like the town," she whispered. "The one that tore."
"Not yet," Dorothy said. "Right now it's like a seed. Nasty, but small. It would take more like this, in a lot of places, to even start mimicking that disaster."
"How did it get past your wards?" Flint demanded.
Lyr's eyes hardened. "Nothing gets past my wards," she said. "They missed this because it was fed from outside." She flicked the twine. "Link thread. The kind you cut last night, Dorothy. Someone pushed resonance along it and used the disruption to slip this knotted sugar into the garden."
"Sugar?" John repeated blankly.
"Bait," Lyr clarified. "For anything that resonates. Like your son. Or the wards he's nudging."
Doris went cold. "You're saying they put lures inside the Academy?"
"I'm saying they tried," Lyr said. "And we're finding them." She looked at John. "And now we know your new ears work beyond your walls. That's useful."
He swallowed. "Useful isn't the word I'd pick."
"It rarely is," Lyr said.
She lifted the twine closer to her face, sniffed.
Her nose wrinkled. "Bad incense and cheaper blood," she muttered. "Paragons. Of the lazy kind."
"What are you going to do with it?" Kael asked.
"Same thing we do with all bad ideas in object form," Lyr said. "We either burn them or shelve them so far down no one remembers they exist." She met Dorothy's gaze. "This one burns."
Dorothy nodded.
"May I?" she asked.
Lyr passed her the twine.
Dorothy held it away from her body, murmured something too soft for John to catch, and tapped the ground with her staff.
A small circle of ward-light flared under the knot.
The twine caught fire.
Not with orange flame.
With a pale, almost colorless burn that left no ash—only a faint smear of greasy smoke that the garden winds immediately tore apart.
The crack symbol twisted as it burned.
For a moment, John could have sworn it bent into a different shape—a spiral closing in on itself.
Then it was gone.
The itch in the air faded.
The wards smoothed.
Brian, who had tensed against Doris during the burning, sighed and relaxed.
Lyr dusted off her hands.
"Well," she said. "At least we know they're not entirely stupid. But they're not half as clever as they think either." Her eyes were flinty. "Let them throw their hooks. Between the four of you, Halvar, and a slightly homicidal archive, they're going to run out of twine before we run out of walls."
Flint stared at her. "You're… surprisingly bloodthirsty."
"I tend the place where they keep their worst ideas," Lyr said. "I know what happens when we're too polite."
Back in the suite, the air felt thicker again.
Safe thicker.
Not suffocating.
The extra blanket of stone hummed as they crossed the threshold.
Brian fussed, then settled as soon as he saw the chalk stars.
Doris laid him in the cradle.
He stared up, eyes tracking the familiar shapes.
"Today you made a leaf turn," she whispered, brushing his cheek. "And we found someone else's knot in our garden. You're not allowed to
make a habit of either."
He blew a spit bubble in response.
John leaned his back against the wall near the door, letting his newly practiced senses unfurl.
The ward hum: steady.
The corridor knot: unchanged.
The faint echo around the cradle: a little brighter, like a sleepy fire stoked once.
"Feels different?" Dorothy asked.
"Feels like the tower… noticed," he said slowly. "What we did. What they did. All of it. Like a ledger, updating."
"That's because it is," Dorothy said. "Every time someone scratches a mark, ties a knot, burns a thread, the lattice adjusts. If the Paragons keep pushing, they'll leave a pattern. And patterns are easier to step on than shadows."
Flint flopped into his usual chair. "So we're bait now," he said. "Walking alarm bells. Paragon detection sticks."
"Yes," Dorothy said.
"And you're not sugar-coating that."
"No," she said.
He considered it.
"Fine," he decided. "If I have to be bait, I'd rather be bait that bites back."
Doris sat on the edge of the bed, watching Brian's eyelids droop.
"Do you think he knew?" she asked quietly. "About the knot? About the leaf?"
"No," Dorothy said. "Not the way we mean 'know.' His body recognized resonance. His instincts reached. That's all."
"Is that better?" John asked.
"That's what childhood is," Dorothy said. "Instinct and imitation before understanding." Her gaze softened, fixed on Brian. "The
question is who he grows up imitating."
Doris looked at the chalk stars.
"At least he'll have our sky," she murmured.
"And our walls," John added.
"And our knives," Flint said.
"And our books," Dorothy put in.
"And my disapproval of bad patterns," Lyr's voice echoed faintly in his memory.
Brian yawned.
His tiny fingers curled, reaching once toward the stars.
One of them glowed—just the crooked one Doris had drawn slightly off from the others.
Not bright enough for anyone but those in the room to notice.
Just enough to say: I remember.
The glow faded.
Sleep took him.
Outside, somewhere under the western wall, Orane's people scraped more twine and bone from drains. Ren read new reports with a frown. Vela sharpened her arguments. The Paragons tied fresh knots and whispered about their lost line.
Inside this small circle of stone and chalk and quiet determination, a family counted different things.
Breaths.
Hums.
Cracks found and burned.
Leaves that turned toward a child, and hooks that snapped before they could taste him.
The world was still leaning in dangerous directions.
But now, when the stone sang, they sang back.
Not loud yet.
Not enough to shake towers.
Just enough to keep each other awake.