The heavy oak door groaned on its hinges, letting in a swirl of dead leaves and a blast of air that felt like a slap. I didn't look up. I was too busy staring at my hands. They were pale, the skin stretched tight over knuckles that looked like they belonged to a ghost.

  ?Aris. The name felt like a loose tooth in my mouth—something that didn't belong, but I couldn't stop touching.

  ?"Oi. Aris. I know you're not dead. I can see your chest moving."

  ?The voice was gravelly and loud, vibrating in the small, dusty space of the library. I recognized it instantly. Silas. The blacksmith’s son. In Aris’s memories, this guy was a recurring natural disaster—someone who existed solely to remind the "useless librarian" where he sat on the village food chain.

  ?I didn't scramble to my feet. I didn't stammer an apology. I just stayed on the floor, my cheek still inches from the dust, and shifted my eyes toward the boots.

  ?They were caked in dark, heavy mud. River clay, my brain noted automatically. High moisture content. He’s been near the North bank within the last hour.

  ?"You're late," Silas barked. He kicked a stray book out of his way—a leather-bound volume on herbalism. It skidded across the floorboards with a sound that made my teeth ache. "My father sent me for the Tome of Metallurgy. The Mayor wants a new gate hinge that doesn't snap in the frost, and the old man thinks there’s a 'blessing' in one of these skins that'll make the iron cold-resistant."

  ?I slowly pushed myself up. My muscles felt like old rubber bands, weak and unconditioned. I sat there, leaning back against a rotting shelf, and looked Silas in the eye.

  ?He blinked. He was expecting the usual: Aris scurrying around, tripping over his own feet, begging for patience. Instead, he got a guy who looked like he was watching a particularly boring lecture.

  ?"The library is open to the public, Silas," I said. My voice was raspy, but steady. "The books are on the shelves. Use your eyes."

  ?The silence that followed was thick. Silas tilted his head, his brow furrowing. It was the look of a predator trying to figure out why the rabbit hadn't started running yet.

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  ?"What did you say to me, rat?" He took a heavy step forward, his shadow swallowing me. "You know I can't read this scribbling. That's your job. Get up and find it before I decide to see if your ribs are as brittle as these pages."

  ?I felt the old Aris’s heart rate spike—a physical "fight or flight" response triggered by years of bullying. I took a slow, deliberate breath, forcing the cortisol levels down. I wasn't Aris. Not entirely. And I didn't have the patience for a guy whose greatest intellectual achievement was hitting metal with a hammer.

  ?"I have a headache, Silas," I said, my voice deadpan. I stood up, using the shelf for leverage. I was taller than him, but half as wide. "The metallurgy books are in the third aisle. Bottom shelf. They’re the ones that smell like sulfur and old grease. Find it yourself."

  ?I turned my back on him. It was a gamble—physics tells you that a mass in motion stays in motion, and Silas was currently a mass of muscle and irritation.

  ?"Hey! I'm not done with—"

  ?"Silas," I interrupted, walking toward the cold hearth. "If you want a gate hinge that doesn't snap, tell your father to stop quenching the iron in the river water during mid-winter. The temperature differential is too high. It creates internal stress fractures. Use oil. It slows the cooling rate and allows the molecular structure to stabilize."

  ?Silas stopped mid-stride. I could practically hear the gears in his head grinding, trying to process words like 'differential' and 'molecular.'

  ?"Oil?" he scoffed, though the aggression had leaked out of his voice, replaced by pure confusion. "That’s... that’s a waste of good oil. Water is free. And what do you know about smithing? You can't even lift the tongs."

  ?"I know how things break," I replied, kneeling by the cold fireplace. "Now, find your book or leave. I’m busy."

  ?I didn't look back to see his expression. I focused on the 'Heat Stone' sitting in the hearth—a dull, orange rock that was supposed to keep this building at a livable temperature. It was barely lukewarm.

  ?I didn't pray to it. I didn't chant. I reached out and touched the iron pedestal it sat on. Cold.

  ?Conductivity, I thought. The iron was pulling the heat out of the stone and dumping it directly into the frozen ground. It was like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

  ?I grabbed a discarded piece of thick, dry canvas from a nearby crate and folded it several times. I lifted the stone—it was lighter than it looked—and slid the canvas underneath, creating a thermal barrier between the stone and the iron.

  ?"You've gone weird, Aris," Silas muttered from the third aisle. "Ever since you fainted in the square, you've been talking like a haunted clock."

  ?The door thudded shut a few minutes later, the sound echoing through the empty library.

  ?I leaned back against the stone hearth, waiting. Within sixty seconds, the air around my hands began to shimmer. Without the iron pedestal acting as a heat sink, the stone’s energy had nowhere to go but up. The temperature began to climb. 15 degrees. 20 degrees.

  ?I closed my eyes, feeling the first bit of warmth touch my skin.