No Varro.
I sat up so fast I hit my head on the canopy.
Didn't care.
He's GONE, my brain said. Gone gone gone. No rings. No scribe. No fat man four corridors away filing your BREATHING for imperial records. The Rebel Alliance has blown up the Death Star. The ring is in the volcano. Shawshank has cleared the pipe. WE ARE—
"No," Ren said.
I hadn't even looked at him yet.
"I haven't—"
"The smile Nick. I can hear the smile."
"That doesn't make any—"
"I can HEAR IT."
I got out of bed. Rolled my neck. Both shoulders. The full unfolding of a man who'd been performing Small And Unthreatening for two weeks and was now done.
"Edric," I said. "Status."
Ren marked his page. Left. Back in eight minutes.
"East wall. Morning rotation. Same as—"
"Background noise." Already pulling up the floorboard. "Without Varro he's a sim with no server. We maintain the story, don't poke him, we move."
"You spent THREE DAYS—"
"Next problem."
"THREE. DAYS. NICHOLAS—"
The real notebook was in my hands.
Ren stopped talking.
He knew the notebook.
Not the architecture one — the one with six weeks of suppressed weapons engineering compressed into it like a spring that had been held down by a thumb and was now about to be released into the face of everyone who'd told it to be patient.
I set it on the desk.
Opened it.
PHASE 1: MILITARY PRODUCTION.
The grin started.
"Nick."
Wider.
"Nicholas."
"Paper cartridge," I said.
"Oh no—"
"PAPER. CARTRIDGE."
"Here we go—"
"Pre-measured powder, ball, paper, ONE UNIT, load time goes from thirty seconds to EIGHT—"
"You don't need to—"
"EIGHT SECONDS REN. The Prussians figured this out and went from one shot a minute to THREE while everyone else was still measuring powder with their FEELINGS and their VIBES—"
"Please—"
"—and the differential is not subtle, the differential is THREE VERSUS ONE, THREE ALWAYS BEATS ONE, this is not complicated MATHEMATICS—"
I stood up.
Didn't plan to. Just — happened. The chair went back. I was pacing. The pencil was still in my hand somehow, moving, sketching cartridge geometry on whatever paper was nearest which turned out to be yesterday's drainage notes but that was fine, drainage was solved, drainage could be a canvas now—
"—and THEN—"
"Oh god," Ren said.
"—GRENADES—"
"—I knew it—"
"IRON CASING. POWDER CHARGE. FOUR SECOND FUSE. You throw it into a formation that has NEVER. SEEN. A GRENADE. and you know what happens—"
"Please don't—"
"IT WINS REN."
"Don't—"
"IT JUST WINS. Doesn't matter how good their swords are. Doesn't matter how experienced their general is. Doesn't matter if Sun Tzu himself came back from the dead—"
I would know.
"—NONE OF THAT MATTERS when an object lands in your formation and EXPLODES ON A TIMER because your brain has NO EXISTING CATEGORY for that experience and the psychological—"
I knocked the ink off the desk.
Didn't notice until Ren made a sound.
Kept going.
"—the psychological impact of the FIRST grenade on ANY battlefield is worth ten times the physical damage which is ALREADY SIGNIFICANT and THEN—"
Both hands on the desk now. Left hand — cartridge cross section, powder charge, ball, fold geometry, load sequence. Right hand — production numbers, forge output times new bellows capacity times Cole's projected contribution times—
"—THEN YOU COMBINE THEM—"
"You're standing in the ink—"
"Paper cartridge infantry, three shots a minute, disciplined LINES—"
"The RUG Nick—"
"—grenadiers on the FLANKS—"
"YOU'RE TRACKING IT EVERYWHERE—"
The full picture hit.
I stopped.
Middle of the room.
Ink on the floor. Ink on my feet. Ink footprints from the desk to where I was standing. The drainage notes were now also a cartridge blueprint. Three pages of paper were on the floor. The chair was against the wall somehow.
The full picture was assembled in my head.
Complete.
Perfect.
Terrifying in the best possible way.
No thoughts, said every single part of my brain at the exact same time. Only grenades.
The giggle started.
Not going to describe it. Can't. Some sounds defy written language. What I will say is that Ren, who had seen me do many things in eight years of close proximity, pressed himself fully against the wall with the expression of a man who was updating his risk assessment in real time and not enjoying the new numbers.
"AAAAAaaaa~~~~"
"Oh my—"
"FINALLY—"
"You need to—"
"I CAN MAKE MY BEAUTIES—"
"THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE CORRIDOR—"
"ohhhh myyy GAWD YES—"
"THE DOOR IS NOT THAT THICK—"
"oh HOOOOOO—"
Both hands moving. The pencil had run out of lead at some point and I'd switched to a second one without registering it. Cartridge assembly left hand. Grenade casing right hand. Production projections down the middle in handwriting that was technically still handwriting in the same way a car crash is technically still a car.
The giggling had evolved.
It was something else now.
Something that lived in the space between giggling and a man finally, after years, being exactly where he was supposed to be.
Ren sat down on the floor.
Just — sat down. Against the wall. Looking at the ink footprints and the papers and the two empty pencils and his prince standing in the middle of it all vibrating at a frequency that stone buildings weren't designed for.
"I want a raise," he said. Very quietly. To the floor.
"Tab," I said. Three pages deep in production calculations.
"The tab is—"
"Tab, Ren."
"...Tab."
Sound travels in old stone buildings like gossip travels in small towns — fast, slightly distorted, impossible to stop once it's started.
The maid knocked twenty minutes in.
I opened the door.
She looked at me. At the ink footprints. At the papers. At the two dead pencils. At the third pencil currently in my hand. At whatever my face was doing. At the hair.
"Your Highness," she said. "Are you—"
"Find Cole. Blacksmith's apprentice. Here within the hour."
"I — yes — are you—"
"Tell Marta the eggs were good."
Door.
She stood in the corridor for a moment doing absolutely nothing.
Then went to find Marta.
Marta listened to the full report. The sounds. The hair. The ink. The specific quality and evolution of the giggling. The footprints.
"He gets like that sometimes," Marta said, and went back to her bread.
Completely. Objectively. False.
But she said it like gravity and the maid filed it accordingly.
Father's knock came at lunch.
Two short one long.
"Come in."
The door opened.
Loading.
Loading.
"...Are you alright?"
"Prussian infantry doctrine," I said. "Sit down."
He sat down. Eight years of fathering a small disaster had given him excellent reflexes.
I gave him the edited version. Defense. Braveheart's security. Numbers changing when one side has something the other has never encountered. Showed him the cartridge diagram. Watched him trace it.
"The forge," he said slowly. "The gate. All of it was—"
"Leading here. Yes."
"And the drainage?"
"Genuinely just drainage."
He laughed.
Real one. The one that didn't come out in court. I hadn't heard it in weeks.
He's beginning to believe, I thought.
He put his hand on my head when he left. Still laughing quietly down the corridor.
I turned back to the desk.
Good.
Cole arrived at two.
Stood in the doorway. Did the inventory — ink footprints, papers, scale drawings, me. The look of someone recalibrating silently and quickly.
"Can you keep a secret?" I said.
He looked at the room for another second.
"Depends on the secret," he said.
This is the way.
"Sit down."
Cartridge design first. He asked three questions. Right questions. The questions I'd have asked. Fuse timing, casing ratio, production standardization.
"Why me?" he said.
"Aperture mechanism. Second try."
Something moved in his face. Quick. Gone.
"Alright," he said.
"Welcome aboard."
"I want a raise," Ren said.
"Ren—"
"He's going to get one eventually and I've been HERE—"
"The TAB—"
"IS A BOOK AT THIS POINT NICK—"
Cole looked between us.
"Is this normal?" he said.
"Yes," Ren said.
"No," I said.
We looked at each other.
"...Yes," I said.
Cole left at five.
Room settled.
I leaned back.
We are so back, I thought. Cole recruited. Forge running. Father briefed. Forty pages of the most advanced weapons technology this world has never seen sitting on my desk like they own the place.
We are so genuinely magnificently BACK—
I picked up the cartridge diagram.
Held it up.
And my brain, which had been running at weapons goblin frequency for eleven hours, did the thing.
Zoomed out.
Paper cartridge flintlock, it said. Beautiful. Who loads it?
Soldiers.
Who trains them?
Instructors.
Who writes the doctrine?
Someone.
Who makes the cartridges at scale?
Multiple forges.
Where are the multiple forges?
...
Who pays for them?
...
Where does the money come from?
I looked out the window.
Braveheart's treasury. Tribute payment. Basic maintenance. River route taxed. Iron deposits underreported. Trade networks the size of a corner shop. The whole economic structure of the kingdom built around the single goal of surviving until next year.
One forge. Zero trained soldiers. No supply chain. No manufacturing base. No money. No—
Oh, I thought.
Oh no.
"What," Ren said.
"I have to rebuild everything first."
Still.
"...Everything."
"Economy. Military. Supply chains. Trade. Treasury. All of it. The weapons are the destination but the destination is ten steps away and I've been—"
I stopped.
"—giggling about the destination for eleven hours."
Ren put his book down. The careful way.
"How long," he said.
"Years."
The word sat in the room like furniture.
Years.
Silence.
Outside Lily was telling Biscuit something urgent. Father was in his study. Aldous was running the bellows again just because he could.
Then the grin came back.
Different one. Slower. Deeper. The grin that wasn't about weapons — the one that was about puzzles. About problems that were bigger than they first appeared. About the specific joy of standing at the bottom of something enormous and knowing you have exactly what it takes to climb it.
I have years, I thought. Eight years old. Thirty six years of knowledge. And while I spend those years building—
—they rot.
Every year I build, they decay.
I'm not racing a clock.
I'm watching an hourglass.
"Good," I said.
"GOOD?" Ren said.
"Good. Means there's a lot to do." Already turning to a fresh page. THE REAL PHASE 1. Underlined. "Better start."
"I want the raise NOW," Ren said. "Not eventually. You said revenue stream was first. I want contractual confirmation—"
"You'll get the raise."
"IN WRITING."
"Ren."
"I HAVE WITNESSED THINGS TODAY NICK—"
"You'll get the raise IN WRITING when we have a functioning economy to pay it from which is now ITEM ONE on the list so technically you asking for it is helping me prioritize, well done."
Silence.
"...That was manipulation," Ren said.
"That was efficiency. Different thing."
"It really wasn't."
"Tab."
"I HATE THE TAB—"
The candles burned low.
Ren fell asleep against the wall. I left him.
Real Phase 1 taking shape. River route development. Iron deposit surveying. Personnel — I had a list, eight years of quiet watching, names I'd been filing since I was five. People who worked harder than their position required. People who looked at problems the way I looked at problems.
I kept writing.
Candles lower.
And then — the way thoughts arrive when the conscious brain is finally too tired to block them — Lily.
Not the fountain. Not the candles. Not the crayon doing its little aviation moment.
What's the ceiling?
All of it had been involuntary. Reflexive. Magic sneezing out of her while she thought about cats and picture books and whatever five year olds thought about. No control. No awareness. No understanding that it was even happening.
What happens when it's on purpose?
My pencil moved.
Fresh page.
What can she do?
Underlined.
"Ren," I said.
"Mm."
"Experiment."
Silence. The specific silence of a brain booting up against its will.
"Princess."
Not a question.
"Play," I said. "She doesn't know it's an experiment. We make it fun, she does things she doesn't know she's doing, we observe. Safe. Controlled. On her terms."
"And if something visible happens."
"We handle it."
"Like the fountain."
"We handled the fountain."
"Nick." One eye open. "She's five."
"An ability she can't control is a risk for her. Not from her — Lily's fine, Lily's Lily — but the second someone else figures out what she can do before she does, we lose the narrative. We lose the ability to protect her."
I looked at the page.
"She's the most important person in this kingdom. She doesn't know it. I don't fully know it yet either. And I don't like not knowing things about people I'd burn the world down for."
Quiet.
The candle flickered.
Once.
We both looked at it.
We both looked away.
"Tomorrow," Ren said. "Before she finds Biscuit. The cat makes everything worse."
"The cat always makes everything worse."
"Agreed."
I looked at the page.
What can she do?
Down the corridor. Past the guard station. Past the hunting tapestry. Into the room where a five year old was asleep with a cat on her feet and a crayon in her hand and not even the shadow of an idea what she was carrying around inside her.
Yet, I thought.
Yet.