Lena was setting the table for dinner, humming the same silly tune to herself as she pced down bowls and ptes. At st, she noticed the wand.

  “What’s this?” She picked up the tiny, absurdly small magic stick and twirled it between her fingers. “Oh, right. Almost lost you again.”

  ALMOST?! Blorbo internally shrieked.

  Lena shrugged and, without a second thought, slipped the wand into her pocket. It was safe, for now.

  For the first time since the Wand Incident, Blorbo allowed himself to breathe.

  He was too emotionally exhausted to process anything else. Between the cat, the potatoes, and his new, completely useless skill, he needed a break.

  “Not looking too bad, Lena.” Somebody spoke, and Blorbo almost shook in startle because of the spook. “The potatoes didn’t turn into mush today.”

  The old man appeared in the kitchen, settling into his chair like he had been there the whole time.

  HOW?

  His Perception had gone up. He was a new table now.

  Yet, he still couldn’t detect when the old man entered the house. No footsteps. No creaking floorboards. No shouting of random made-up words.

  The man had just… appeared.

  What the hell does this man DO all day?

  The old man would leave in the morning without a word and come back at night, silent as a ghost. Nobody in this house ever talked about it. He doubted Rob and Lena even knew what he did for a living. And the man had a weirdly specific set of exactly twelve knives kept inside a cupboard counter.

  He is obviously a retired legendary assassin. Maybe the head of a secret guild. Maybe he once sughtered an entire castle's worth of nobles with just a butter knife.

  Or he is an archmage himself! That would expin why Lena is a mage—maybe being a mage is a hereditary thing. Maybe he held forbidden knowledge. Maybe he once accidentally created the first sentient chair.

  Rob and Lena sat down at the kitchen table, the chairs creaking under their weight as they settled in for dinner.

  And then, at the exact same moment, they both made a sound. Simultaneously, they looked at each other, eyes wide with surprise.

  “Did we just sit down at the exact same time?” Rob asked, eyebrows raised.

  Lena blinked. “How unlikely is that?” She grinned. “We’re like… synchronized.”

  “We just know each other too well.” Rob cpped once.

  They both chuckled, before their chuckles were cut short by the old man’s rumble, “Don’t talk at the dining table! Have some manners, you two.”

  Blorbo, however, had never been more aware of anything in his life. He watched the whole thing unfold, a small twinge of rage bubbling up.

  The passive skill Synchronized Sitting had activated on its own. He tried to find a way to deactivate it. There wasn’t any.

  You’re going to feel this way every night from now on, he was annoyed. People would be sitting down in sync until eternity. What if he wanted them to sit down at different times? What then, huh? Ever thought about that?

  He saved magic. And this was the reward he got?

  The thought about the useless skill and the old man kept him occupied until everyone in the household had finished their dinners.

  “I love cabbage,” Lena sat back in her chair, patting her full stomach as she finished her dinner. The conversation had drifted, and Rob had already started talking about some absurd theory he had about the weather.

  Lena looked like she was agitated and wanted to stood, but since she still had to stay and listen to weather conspiracy theories, she reached out to her pocket and pulled out the wand, fiddling with it as though it was just another toy, a shiny pebble.

  The old man’s eyes narrowed, and in a fsh of movement faster than Blorbo had ever seen, he was on his feet, seizing Lena’s wrist with surprising force.

  “What is that?” he demanded with a low, controlled growl.

  Lena blinked in shock. “W—what’s wrong?”

  The old man’s grip tightened, and his gaze hardened as he stared at the tiny wand in her hand. His eyes were filled with an emotion Blorbo couldn’t pce, but it sure as heck wasn’t a good emotion. “Get rid of that this instant.”

  Lena’s voice faltered. “I… It’s just a… just a thing from the market.”

  “Anders, stop. You always do this.” Rob stood, pushing his chair back with a loud scrape. His usual easygoing demeanor was completely repced with a rare intensity that Blorbo had never seen before. “You don’t get to talk to her like that.”

  “I talk to my daughter however the damn I want!” Anders turned to him.

  “She’s not a little girl anymore, and you’re not going to scare her just because you don’t like something.”

  “What do you know?” the old man spat. “You’re a farmer, boy. I only tolerate you.”

  “I can be more than that if I need to. We came from a long line of defenders, and I haven’t forgotten our roots.” Rob’s jaw tightened and his hands curled into fists.

  “The only thing worse than a farmer is a disgraced and oblivious Padinborn. Tell me a Padin Aura you’re able to cast.”

  Padinborn? What the heck is that? Is anyone in this household an actual commoner?

  “I might not know how to cast an Aura.” He took a step forward. “But I know enough to know that she’s my wife. And you don’t get to treat her like she’s a doll.”

  A moment of silence. Blorbo held his breath, waiting for the old man to explode again.

  But instead, Anders suddenly rexed.

  He let out a deep sigh, looking at Rob, then at Lena, who was now silently shaking, then back to Rob.

  His stiff posture softened. He then nodded slowly and spoke in a calmer voice, “I’ll give you that. You’ve got guts. One of the few things I like about you.”

  Rob didn’t back down.

  Anders turned back toward Lena and his expression hardened again. “I took you here for you to stay away from that life. Not to dive into it.”

  Lena blinked, her hand instinctively reaching for the wand in her pocket.

  Yo, what life? Can someone fill me in? Hello? You know there’s a fourth entity in this household, right?

  “What life, dad?” she asked.

  “Just give me the wand.” He spread his hand.

  Lena held the wand firmly in her grasp. “What life? This is the only life I’ve ever known. Tell me what you mean.”

  The grip on the wand tightened as she gred at Anders, refusing to back down.

  “Lena,” Anders’ voice was even lower now. “Don’t squeeze it like that.” His voice was sharp like a dagger.

  Her fingers instinctively tightened further, and her fingers trembled lightly.

  Easy, Lena. You might break it!

  “What life!” Lena screamed, throwing her hands into the air.

  BOOM!

  There was a fsh of light.

  Then came a spectacur explosion of smoke that filled the room with blue, green, and purple wisps swirling around in the air.

  Blorbo recoiled. He’d even physically shaken, praying people would just think Lena shook him as a byproduct of whatever had happened.

  The shadows of something imprinted itself behind the smoke. Dark, dangerous, dragon-shaped.

  “Careful!” Rob jumped in front of Lena with his fists raised. Then the old man jumped in front of both of them then pointed two fingers at the shadow as if he was about to shoot a ray of death at it.

  Then the crazy dangerous shadow revealed itself. It was a dragon-shaped pi?ata. It swung gently as the rainbow-colored ribbons hanging from its horns fpped. The room now smelled like glitters.

  Lena stared at it, wide-eyed. "What... what the heck is this?" she asked, her voice a mixture of shock and pure confusion.

  A pi?ata?! Lena is a garbage mage!

  “A pi?ata, the rarest being in all of the nds,” Anders grunted, his voice somehow even lower. “I should’ve known.”

  A pi?ata, the rarest being in all of the nds?! Lena, you’re a GENIUS!