A slow clap echoed through the training hall, sharp and deliberate. The sound crossed the empty space and came back off the walls, then faded.

  Myrda stepped out onto the floor and walked toward us, boots tapping against stone in a steady rhythm. She stopped an arm’s length away and smiled as if we had just finished a pleasant conversation instead of a demonstration.

  “That was really, really fun to watch,” she said. “You really are a good instructor. Honestly, that was one of the most useful speeches I have ever heard.”

  I inclined my head. “Thank you. I appreciate that. Centuries of training will do that for you.” I kept my eyes on her, reading her posture and the set of her shoulders. “Is there something you needed, Myrda?”

  She lifted what she was carrying and angled it so I could see it clearly. The log was straight-grained and dense, cut clean. The bark had been cleaned but left intact, and the surface had been worked in a practical way rather than polished.

  “I have Winnie’s log,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d like to give it to her when she gets back.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I would love to do that.”

  As she shifted her grip, I saw the new circuits carved into the grain. It ran at a shallow angle, subtle enough that most people would never notice it, but I did.

  “You enchanted it,” I said.

  “I did a little,” Myrda replied. “I shaped a handle so she can actually swing it, and I added some basic weight reduction and durability circuits. Nothing fancy, just enough to keep it from throwing her around or cracking when she swings it for the first time.”

  I frowned. “Are you a wizard?”

  She snorted. “No. I’m an enchanter. Blacksmith by trade.”

  I looked at her hands. Callused and tough. The kind of hands that come from working with them every day. “Then how did you enchant it?”

  “The way normal enchanters do,” she said. “I carved the circuits myself and poured in mana from a vial.” She shrugged. “I only know the basics. It’s a hobby I picked up after I got tired of making basic equipment all day.”

  The word hobby sat there like a stone.

  “Myrda,” I said, and I heard my own voice tighten, “do you happen to have any extra reverend iron?”

  She blinked once. “Of course. Do you need some?”

  I stared at her. “In my day it was forbidden,” I said. “Licensed handlers only. It was a controlled substance. If you were not sanctioned, you did not touch it.”

  “These days it’s common,” she said. “No license. People keep it around because it’s useful.” She tilted her head. “Why?”

  My mind tried to argue with the words. It reached for the old rules first, the ones that had kept me alive and kept my work hidden. Those rules did not match the world I was standing in.

  Plans I had carried for years, careful and narrow, built around scarcity that I treated as permanent, folded in on themselves. The shape of my future changed in one breath.

  I dropped to my knees where I stood. The stone was cold under my palms. I wept, the sound caught behind my teeth, my breath hitching as if my body did not know whether it was allowed to do this.

  Meka moved to my side, close enough that her warmth reached me. “Are you okay, Runt?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand and forced air into my lungs until my voice stopped shaking. “I’m so very happy.” A weak laugh slipped out. “I could do so much with even a single piece.”

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  Myrda did not speak over me. She waited, patient in a way that only comes from making things with your hands.

  When I looked up again, the words came out clean. “Can you please take me to my future?”

  She considered the phrasing for a moment, then nodded. “If that’s what you want to call it. Sure, why not.”

  She turned and gestured toward the exit. “Come on. I’ll show you what I have.”

  Meka glanced between us. “Should I follow?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Come along, apprentice.”

  We left the training hall and moved into narrower corridors. The ceiling dropped. The sound of our steps changed. The air carried oil, dust, and old stone, the smell of places built to function rather than impress.

  Myrda led without hesitation, turning down side passages that bypassed the clean routes. She walked like someone who belonged back here. Meka stayed close behind me, quiet, watching everything.

  Myrda stopped at a plain door and pushed it open with her shoulder. “Back room,” she said.

  The space beyond was dim, lit by old fixtures that hummed faintly. Crates were stacked along the walls in uneven towers. Some bore faded guild stamps. Others were blank. Shelves bowed under the weight of tools and materials that had been stored and forgotten.

  Myrda started opening boxes immediately. Lid off, glance in, lid back on, move to the next. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency.

  I watched her work in silence as she moved from crate to crate. I recognized the shape of discarded learning in what she uncovered. Bent chisels with edges ground down to nothing. Cracked plates with failure lines cut straight through the surface. Dull needles, warped clamps, half-built assemblies abandoned mid-thought.

  “Used to be for beginners crafters,” Myrda said as she set one crate aside. “People who weren’t sure if they wanted to commit.”

  She opened another box, frowned, closed it, then moved on. Dust lifted and settled again. Meka crouched nearby, hands folded neatly, eyes following Myrda’s hands.

  At last, Myrda straightened and reached into a crate at the back. She pulled out a battered wooden case, set it between us, and flipped it open. “Here it is.”

  Inside lay a simple knife. The handle was worn smooth from long use, shaped by hand. The balance was imperfect but it barely mattered. It was made of reverend iron that was what mattered.

  Beside it rested a small hammer, its head slightly misshapen from years of light work, and a bundle of chalk tied with twine.

  I reached for the knife first. The hammer had uses, as a tool or a backup weapon if it came to that.

  The chalk had almost none. Chalk was a poor conduit for mana so it was useless to me. Dirt worked far better and was everywhere. Most people thought dirt was beneath them. So, they never really thought about using it as a mana conductor.

  I wept quietly again, the sound barely audible in the small room. The memory came anyway. The first mana vial I stole, small hands shaking with triumph. I remembered thinking the man was an idiot. I remembered the three drops I had hoarded like treasure in the chest at the foot at my bunk, as if that tiny amount could hold a world together.

  I had built plans around old knowledge and limitations. I had treated old restrictions as universal truth. Now a battered case in a forgotten room proved otherwise.

  Myrda leaned against a shelf and watched me. “You’d probably make a good enchanter,”

  “Yes,” I said. “There are precautions.” I closed the case carefully. “I was an accomplished enchanter once. I will be again.”

  I laughed, soft and steady.

  I stayed where I was for a few moments longer, turning the knife slowly in my hand and letting my attention narrow to it alone. The blade was small, meant for fine detail rather than force. By ordinary standards it was not very sharp, but that was expected. Reverend iron never truly held an edge on its own. It only became sharp when mana moved through it, when intent and power did the cutting instead of the metal itself.

  I glanced up at Myrda. “Do you have any mana vials here,” I asked, “or do we need to go somewhere else?”

  She shook her head. “Those are in another storage,” she said. “This room is open access. Anyone can come back here.” She gestured vaguely around us. “Mana vials and health potions are kept in a locked vault. They’re more valuable, mostly because they’re actually useful to almost everyone.”

  She gave an apologetic shrug. “So, you’ll have to wait until I can go get them for you.”

  That was fine. The knife was enough for now.

  I closed the case and rested my hand on it, feeling the worn wood beneath my palm. The important part was simple and did not need dressing up. The tools existed. The mana was close. I no longer needed to treat them like contraband.

  My mind went straight to application. With reverend iron in hand, I could carve clean circuits when I needed them, replace old work, and build my own tools instead of relying on whatever the guild tossed in a crate. Mana vials were the next step, because without them the knife was only a promise sitting in my palm.

  Meka watched quietly, her gaze shifting between the knife and my face. She did not speak, and I did not need her to.

  I handed the case back to Myrda. “Thank you,” I said.

  She accepted it with a nod. “We’ll get you the vials later,” she said. “No reason to haul everything out at once.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  And it was. I had what I needed to move forward, and for once that was enough.