From the restaurant, the street slopes gently downward, yielding to a natural fold in the terrain rather than forcing its way across it. The paving stones are uneven: broad slabs veined with darker streaks, their grooves holding dust and water like patient scars. The houses stand close together, compact. Beige plaster applied by hand, here and there thin cracks that resemble miniature maps. The windows, framed in dark wood, are often open. From inside drift domestic sounds: dishes clinking, a laugh escaping, a reprimand delivered under the breath.

  Farther on, the street widens and the neighborhood shifts its posture. It becomes commerce. Low wooden stalls display fruit split cleanly in half, twisted roots, smoked meat hanging from metal hooks. The awnings, made of thick sun-faded canvas, cast a worn, mottled shade. The air changes density: ground spices, hot fat, iron. The blacksmith’s shop stands open to the street. The hammer strikes with stubborn regularity, the sound ricocheting off the walls like a mechanical heart that refuses to pause.

  Antea and Grem had walked through that setting in silence for several hundred meters. Normally, Grem with his constant chatter would have tried to saturate the quiet or break the ice, but Antea’s absorbed gaze had intrigued him. Perhaps it would not have happened if, before inviting her to follow him on a sort of improvised tour of his protectorate, she had not shown him how quickly she was progressing in learning the native language.

  She was a sharp girl. And, despite her destabilizing beauty, she seemed to attach no importance to her appearance. Her hair was tousled, and she wore clothes—loose trousers and a worn blouse—that did nothing to highlight her full figure. He was curious. And that curiosity pushed him to linger, to wait for her to be the one to start a conversation.

  But why should she?

  Up to that point she had essentially ignored him, in the few instances when she made an appearance to spend some time with him and his companions. She spoke little even with Mark. The only time Grem had asked about her, while Mark was present, he had said, “Listen, what can you tell me about your friend? Do we get on her nerves?” And Mark had replied that he did not have the faintest idea. Figuring out what goes on in her head is hard, unfortunately. Apparently she doesn’t open up much even with him.

  And yet, inside the hold, she had shown no sign of shyness. Rather, she had seemed like a girl who had just discovered how hard it is to be a beautiful girl, and who probably gets bored talking to people. Strange. Strange, except that she speaks so well, in such a short time.

  Hypotheses buzzed through Grem’s mind, fueled by the curiosity that that graceful creature had spontaneously stirred in him from that day on.

  Then, as they passed a shop from which someone had just shouted something incomprehensible in a shrill, grating voice that almost made Grem snicker, she broke the silence:

  “Very silent guide. I must… understand by myself?”

  “Heh, there’s not much to say, right? These streets speak for themselves. And you’ve already seen them, haven’t you?”

  Antea shook her head.

  “Really?” Grem said, genuinely surprised. “But after work do you always go straight home?”

  “Yes”

  “Why?”

  “Study”

  “A person also needs pleasure.” Grem tried to use words she had probably already encountered in her learning process.

  “There not much pleasure here… If not know language”

  “That’s not true. Besides, you already know enough of the language to go buy things. Thuljas and your friend often go shopping, right? Why don’t you go with them?”

  “Honest?”

  “Honest.”

  “Boring.”

  Grem laughed.

  “I figured. Are you a little genius?”

  “Geniuses not exist.”

  “What do you mean? I’m a genius at fighting.” And he threw a quick punch in front of him, which did not surprise Antea, as he had expected.

  “You genius because you better than others, but you genius if all better than you?”

  “Are you stupid? No. Obviously.”

  “You good same I say. Or if for all fighting is stupid”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “You genius if others think you genius. No one genius because is truly, always a genius. So genius not exist. Is wrong say ‘not exist,’ try understand.”

  Grem thought about it and understood. Genius is relative. He grasped the concept. Still, what a troublemaker.

  “I get it. I get it. I was just trying to tell you that you seem intelligent to me. But I already know what you might say about being intelligent. You sound like one of those old university men who spend all their time reasoning about the most stupid things, you know?”

  “I know.” she said seriously.

  “Why are you so serious. Why don’t you loosen up a little?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I never see you smile. If you don’t like being with us, I can help you find a better place, you know?”

  “Better place? First I learn language, then I make decisions.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “I see. You seem like a fucking little soldier. You can enjoy people even if you speak badly, in my opinion.”

  “You, maybe. Me no.”

  “You think I’m stupid.”

  “I don’t know you. For me speaking important. I never know do other things well.”

  “Ah, I see. I mean, I don’t see. You, in the land of the mages, needed intellect to be happy?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “At your home, to be happy you had to speak well.”

  “Yes.”

  “In our home, a girl like you finds someone like me and spends a life with few problems.”

  “Also in my home.”

  “Is that the problem? Is there a man back home waiting for you?”

  “What? No.” She frowned.

  Finally an emotional reaction that isn’t frigid, Grem thought.

  “Did you argue with Mark? Is Mark your boyfriend?”

  “What? No, no. I… alone.”

  “Is that it? You can’t find a guy who is… who has value for you? All too stupid?”

  “No… Well, maybe.” she said, smiling.

  “You think I’m stupid.”

  “I said ‘I don’t know you.’”

  “Now that we’ve talked a bit you must have some idea, come on.”

  “You don’t seem stupid.”

  The answer made him proud, but immediately afterward he thought she could hardly have said anything different to the guy who had given her a roof, placed her in a context that provided books to study the language, a network of contacts to find a job, kept her for free for a week, and saved her in a peripheral area of Anarchy. Maybe I am stupid, he thought, smiling.

  “What are you reading now?” The conversation had taken an awkward turn, and there were things he wanted to ask her, but they were now approaching the largest natural park in the protectorate, one of the most beautiful places in the urban enclave.

  “Valashian, volume 2. Intermediate guide to the use of the universal language.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “No… I like stories and difficult concepts.”

  They arrived in front of one of the park’s entrances.

  In front of them the park opened without theatrics, yet with a breadth that forced the gaze to widen. It was neither an ornamental garden nor a forest left to itself. It stood in between: disciplined, but not tamed.

  The main paths were laid with pale gravel, carefully compacted, crunching underfoot. On either side stretched wide lawns, living surfaces broken by clusters of tall, sturdy trees whose dense canopies filtered the light unevenly. The green was not uniform: darker, damper areas alternated with strips cut by blades of sunlight that sparked almost metallic reflections on the leaves.

  Deeper inside, the small natural changes in elevation had been preserved rather than flattened. Gentle rises, secondary paths climbing among exposed roots, shrubs trimmed with a steady but not obsessive hand. Nothing appeared wild, yet nothing felt artificial.

  A narrow canal crossed the park diagonally; the water, slow and clear, flowed over smooth stones. A low dark-wood bridge connected the two banks without drawing attention to itself.

  Here and there stood stone benches, simple and solid, oriented toward open spaces rather than monuments. There were no celebratory statues, no unnecessary decorations. The grandeur of the place did not come from symbols, but from proportion: the balance between open space and vegetation, between light and shadow, between order and growth.

  Since she had just told him she had never taken the road that led there, Grem had been sure the view would strike her. Not necessarily with awe, but at least with something different from the indifference with which she was observing the green eye of the Protectorate. Could the land of the mages really be this beautiful, he wondered, as a light breeze stirred the treetops and carried the scent of damp grass and slow water.

  After she had said, “ I like stories and difficult concepts,” silence had fallen between them again. They walked along one of the paths; gravel crunched under their soles, and an insect buzzed near Grem’s ear before darting away. He had expected Antea to ask questions, to point at something. When the Protectorate did not yet exist, the park had already been there. The first time he visited it, he had immediately set about studying the plants, wondering what insects lived in that habitat, how the balance of the place worked. She did not seem to care. She sat down on a stone bench, its surface still warm from the sun.

  Grem looked at her and asked, “ Don’t you feel like exploring the park?”

  Antea replied, “ Not much to see.”

  He frowned slightly. “ You don’t like nature.”

  “ I like. You like more, I think.”

  He gestured toward a path winding between the trees. “ Why did you sit down. There’s more to see in the Protectorate. Aren’t you curious?” Meanwhile, he sat down beside her, leaving only a small space between them.

  “ Not these things.”

  “ You’re really one of those people who would live in a library, huh.”

  “ No no. I like think and talk.”

  “ Not write.”

  “ Not much.”

  Grem nodded. “ I like to write. I write poems, but I’m not very good.”

  Antea tilted her head slightly. “ Really? I have friend who writes poems… wrote.”

  “ Was he good?”

  “ Someone at my home said ‘ genius.’”

  Grem let out a soft snort. “ But you didn’t agree, otherwise earlier you just gave me shit.”

  She made a small dismissive gesture. “ I don’t understand much of poems.”

  “ There’s nothing to understand.”

  Antea laughed. A brief, light laugh that dissolved into the warm air. To Grem, it felt as if the air itself had grown lighter.

  He leaned back. “ Ahhh, how I love lying around doing nothing.”

  Then he turned toward her. “ I get the feeling you don’t really like visiting cities and that you used me to leave work early because it’s boring, right? Do you want to stop working to spend more time studying? Or work less? I can do that, I’m a powerful person.”

  Antea looked at him. “ Why?”

  “ I want you to learn the language well, so I can understand what you think.”

  “ Why?” she repeated, and this time there was a thin thread of tension in her voice.

  “ You seem like a very intelligent person, and very different from me. I want to know what happens inside your head.”

  He smiled at her, softer now.

  Antea looked away toward the canal. “ I don’t know if is good thing for you.”

  “ I want to know as soon as possible.”

  “ But is not right.”

  Grem shrugged. “ I decide what is right and what is not here.”

  She looked at him again. “ And this seems right to you?”

  He inhaled, catching the smell of water and the wood of the nearby bridge. “ You’ll always find someone who thinks a rule isn’t right, even rules that seem to make everyone agree. What is right is what I think is right. Then if someone tells me I was wrong and explains why and makes me truly believe I was wrong, what I think is right changes.”

  Antea laughed again, more quietly this time.

  “ Does that sound stupid?” Grem asked, not grasping the thought behind her laughter.

  “ No, but is hard change ideas about these things. Maybe more right think ‘ is wrong what I think is right’ and understand why maybe really so.”

  Grem fell silent. The rustle of leaves and the murmur of water filled the space between them.

  “ I don’t know,” he said at last, thoughtful. Possible answers swirled in his head, still without shape.

  A few moments passed. A bird hopped between the branches above them. Grem sat open, almost sprawled. Antea’s shoulders were slightly hunched, her hands clasped between her knees. There was a restrained unease in her gaze, as if she wanted to say something but found it difficult to do so in a language that still did not fully belong to her.

  Then Grem stood up abruptly, with a sharp movement. Gravel crunched under his soles. Antea flinched, as if pulled back from far away.

  Grem said, “ It just occurred to me there’s a place you’ll definitely like. It was created by someone from your home, a mage. A great mage. There are many books, also in your language.”

  Antea’s eyes lit up. “ Really? Let’s go,” she said. She stood up quickly; the bench gave a brief sound of stone against fabric. Her face expressed a full, unquestionable happiness. Grem was reminded of when Alurmstia had managed to obtain books for her to learn Valashian from English. She had worn the same expression then. The knowledge that there was a place where she could find things that would help her understand more made her genuinely happy.

  Right intuition, thought Grem.

  They left the park through another exit. The air outside was warmer, less damp; the smell of grass gave way to stone and freshly baked bread from a nearby bakery. The streets they crossed resembled the previous ones, but felt more residential: low houses with narrow balconies, laundry hanging and swaying lazily, half-closed shutters from which cooking smells drifted out.

  A group of boys were playing noisily in the street, shouts and the dull thud of a ball against the paving stones. When they noticed them, they stopped for a moment. They knew Grem. They had never seen him with that disheveled stunner. Hence their surprise, the exchanged glances, the muffled snickers.

  Grem returned a few greetings with a nod of his chin, without slowing much. The conversations between him and Antea, on the way to the library, were sporadic and lacking momentum. She walked slightly ahead, quick step, gaze fixed forward as if she were already seeing shelves and pages. She was elsewhere, clearly. Grem preferred not to disturb her. He could not bring clarity to his own mind, and that lack of order irritated him, like a persistent buzzing.

  At one point Antea slowed and asked, “ What is this place?”

  Grem replied, “ A university.”

  “ I don’t understand.”

  “ School… For adults.”

  “Mmh,” she murmured, observing the buildings before them.

  Then silence again. Until they arrived.

  In front of them stretched Muffin University.

  It was not a single building, but a wide complex, almost a small city within the city. Structures of pale stone and reddish brick alternated along internal tree-lined paths, connected by porticoes that offered shade and coolness. The fa?ades were solid and proportioned, with tall windows reflecting the sky like vertical sheets of water.

  At the main entrance opened a broad square paved with regular slabs of smooth stone. At its center, on a circular pedestal, stood an enormous Muffin carved from dark rock: domed top, slightly rippled surface, details so carefully shaped that it almost seemed soft to the touch. It had no declared symbolic function, and precisely for that reason it asserted its presence with a faintly ironic air.

  Students crossed the square in scattered groups. Some argued animatedly, others walked with books pressed to their chests, still others sat on the steps reading in silence. A continuous murmur filled the space, made of different languages, turning pages, quick footsteps on stone.

  Beyond the square, the buildings were arranged around inner courtyards. Manicured lawns, younger trees than those in the park, wooden tables under pergolas covered with climbing plants. The air carried a mixed scent of paper, dust, and coffee drifting from some common room.

  The library building dominated the northern side of the campus. Taller than the others, with a wide and deep staircase leading up to massive dark wooden doors. Above the architrave, delicate engravings ran along the stone, symbols and letters from different languages intertwined.

  Antea stopped for a few seconds to take it all in. The great Muffin at the entrance, the students, the windows lit from within. Her fingers moved slightly, as if already brushing invisible pages.

  Grem watched her from the side.

  This time, there was no indifference.

  There was terror.