The wooden spoon returned the next morning.
Not ceremoniously.
Not dramatically.
And certainly not with the respect it deserved.
It was placed on the table with a quiet tap, like an object that had committed crimes but was being granted parole.
Arin froze mid-chew. His eyes moved first. Slow. Disbelieving. Then his head followed.
"…Mother?" he asked carefully, as though the spoon might vanish if acknowledged too loudly.
Avaris sipped her tea.
"You may have it back," she said. "On probation."
Arin stared at the spoon. Then at her. Then back at the spoon. His lower lip trembled.
"I—" His voice cracked. "I swear I will use it responsibly."
Lysa snorted into her cup.
"You said that last time," she said. "Right before you tried to measure soup depth."
"That was research," Arin protested, gently lifting the spoon as if it were sacred. "I learned many things."
I cleared my throat. "Among them, presumably, that soup does not appreciate being quantified."
Arin nodded solemnly. "It resists categorization."
Avaris allowed herself the faintest smile—so faint it could have been a trick of the light.
"Eat," she said. "You're going to the academy."
Arin beamed. History had been corrected.
The walk to the academy was… normal. Suspiciously so.
No looming dread.
No Imperial paranoia.
No catastrophic probability trees blooming in my mind like weeds.
Just a town waking up. Merchants arguing about prices. Children running ahead of parents. Someone shouting about bread being too expensive again.
I walked between my children, wooden spoon now safely tucked into Arin's satchel like a treasured heirloom.
"Father," Arin said as we approached the gates, "if nothing bad happens today, can I assume the universe has forgiven me?"
"No," I replied. "The universe does not forgive. It merely postpones."
"That's comforting."
Lysa stopped just inside the gate and turned to me. "You'll be late today."
"I am always late," I said. "Just rarely to the same thing twice."
She nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer, and walked off without another word.
Arin lingered. "…Mother is still angry," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"Is she angry forever?"
"No," I said, resting a hand on his shoulder. "She's angry precisely because it isn't forever."
That seemed to help. He went inside.
I stayed only long enough to watch them disappear into the flow of students—one blending in too well, the other not bothering to try. Then I left.
The classroom smelled like chalk, ink, and regret.
Arin took his seat and opened the book placed neatly on his desk.
Foundational Kinetic Principles — Volume I.
The cover was dull. The title was duller.
The boy beside him sighed loudly. "This is going to be boring."
Arin read the first line.
Force applied inefficiently results in wasted motion.
He blinked. Read it again. Then nodded.
"Oh," he whispered. "That explains everything."
The instructor began lecturing about balance, leverage, and momentum—most of the class promptly stopped listening.
Arin did not. He followed diagrams eagerly, eyes lighting up at phrases like center of gravity and predictive displacement.
The boy beside him glanced over. "You actually get this?"
Arin tilted his head. "It's just… instructions."
"For what?"
"For not getting hit."
The boy stared. "…That's not how fighting works."
Arin closed the book gently. "It is if you don't want to lose."
The boy scoffed. "I just hit things."
"Yes," Arin said politely. "The book explains why that fails."
The boy frowned and went back to doodling swords.
Arin kept reading.
Her book was thinner. That alone annoyed her.
Applied Strategy: Threat Recognition and Behavioral Prediction.
She skimmed the first page. Then slowed. Then reread it properly.
The text wasn't about fighting. It was about people.
Aggression announces itself. Control conceals intent. The most dangerous opponent is not the angriest—but the calmest.
Lysa's eyes lifted. She looked around the classroom.
One student sat too stiffly—overcompensating.
Another tapped his foot—impatient, reckless.
One girl smiled too much—masking nerves.
She marked them silently. The book hadn't told her to do that. It had simply named things she already knew.
The instructor asked a question. Lysa answered without raising her hand.
He sighed. "Yes. Correct. Sit."
She did.
A student behind her muttered, "Why are we even learning this? Just teach us how to fight."
Lysa didn't turn around.
"This is how you fight," she said calmly.
The student went quiet.
The bell rang. Books closed. Chairs scraped. Students stretched like survivors.
Arin met Lysa near the corridor.
"That was fun," he said.
"It was tolerable," she replied.
He hesitated. "Do you think Father would like my book?"
"Yes," she said immediately. "It's full of ways to avoid effort."
"That does sound like him."
They started walking toward their next class.
A sign hung above the doorway ahead.
Practical Instruction Wing.
Arin slowed. "…Lysa."
"Yes."
"Why do I feel like this is where they stop letting us read?"
She glanced at the door. At the reinforced frame. The scuffed stone. The faint echoes of something heavy hitting something harder.
"Because," she said, "this is where books stop being polite."
The door opened. An instructor stepped out, sleeves rolled up, expression grimly cheerful.
"Inside," he said. "No books today."
Arin swallowed. "…Oh."
They stepped in. And the door closed behind them.
That evening, when they returned home, Avaris inspected them with the efficiency of a general counting troops. Satisfied, she nodded once and went back to her work.
Dinner was loud again. Normal again. Arin ate enthusiastically, spoon clutched like a badge of honor.
Lysa corrected him twice. I corrected him once. Avaris corrected us all with a look.
Arin ate enthusiastically, spoon clutched like a badge of honor. He had a small smudge of stone dust on his cheek that didn't look like classroom chalk.
"How was the Practical Wing?" I asked, passing the salt.
Arin's spoon paused mid-air. He looked at Lysa. Lysa looked at her plate.
"The instructor decided to take an early retirement," Lysa said calmly.
"He said he needed to go find his soul," Arin added. "It was very educational."
I nodded. "Practicality often leads to spiritual crisis. Eat your peas."
Later, as the house settled and the day finally released us, I found myself thinking something dangerous.
Not about empires. Not about academies. But about how easily peace had returned. And how fragile it probably was.