"Look, it doesn’t matter now..."

  Seven years.

  The past had settled like dust, left undisturbed by time.

  And in its place,

  A new beginning bloomed.

  A girl stood before a tall mirror, adjusting the brim of her pointed black hat. Her long, silky brown hair swayed in twin tails as she tilted her head, inspecting her reflection with wide, eager eyes behind oversized round glasses. A yellow knit sweater peeked out from beneath the freshly pressed folds of an Aella Academy robe.

  She grinned.

  The robe. The hat. The feeling of it all—it was real. She was finally going to Aella. She was finally going to learn the arts and traditions of magic… She is going to be a magician.

  Her heart swelled with excitement, her fingers tracing the embroidered crest on her robe. Today was the first step toward something wonderful.

  A voice carried through the house, breaking her reverie.

  “Torrie! Breakfast is ready! Come to the dining room!”

  She spun away from the mirror, practically bouncing on her feet.

  “Yes, Mom!” she called back, already rushing toward the door.

  Torrie stepped into the dining room, the scent of fish soup filling the air, rich and comforting.

  Sunlight streamed through the small window above the sink, glinting off the wooden table where two steaming bowls sat waiting. Her mother, stood by the counter, wiping her hands on a cloth, her expression brimming with quiet pride.

  Torrie adjusted her hat before pulling it off and setting it aside, the excitement still buzzing in her chest. Today was the day. The start of something new.

  “Look at you, beginning your first years in Aella Academy.” Mrs. Welton smiled, lingering by the table, her eyes soft with nostalgia. "Let me see you properly," she said, stepping closer.

  Torrie straightened, smoothing the folds of her robe. "Like this?"

  With a playful grin, Torrie twirled in place, the hem of her robe flaring out as she spun. She came to a stop with a little flourish, looking up at her mother expectantly.

  "How do I look, Mom?"

  "Like a grand magician," she said, reaching out to adjust a stray lock of hair from Torrie’s face. "Or at least, one in the making."

  Torrie sat back down.

  "You remind me so much of your brother," Mrs. Welton mused.

  Torrie looked up, curious, “Do I?”

  "Not exactly, but you both are very excited. On his first day at Aella Academy," her mother continued, "He was so eager, he didn’t even bother with breakfast. Just grabbed his things and took off on his bicycle straight to the harbor. Couldn’t wait to board the ferry to Osthaven."

  Torrie chuckled, stirring her soup. "Didn’t expect him to be that excited."

  Mrs. Welton laughed, "Oh, but he was," she said warmly.

  "Speaking of your brother…” She glanced toward the staircase. “Where is he? Didn’t he say he’d be the one to take you himself?"

  Torrie shrugged. "Haven’t seen him."

  Mrs. Welton exhaled, rubbing her temple. "Of course." She stood, pushing her chair back with a sigh.

  Then she cupped her hands around her mouth and called up the stairs. "Edward?!"

  Silence.

  Mrs. Welton huffed. "You stay here, hon. I’ll go see if he’s still in his room."

  She turned and strode toward the staircase, muttering under her breath. Torrie just smiled, spooning up a mouthful of soup as she waited.

  -o-

  The stairs groaned softly, their creaks reverberating in the stillness of the apothecary.

  Mrs. Welton carefully mounted the steps. An attic was reached by a narrow wooden staircase. The polished railings sparkled under her fingertips. A small, circular window at the landing let soft light cast long shadows that danced with her every step.

  With each step, the town below faded into a whisper of bustling life. Replaced by her son's room's oppressive stillness. As she rose, her free hand gently caressed the coarse wooden walls. She touched the rough spots and gouges, scars from her son's growing.

  As she approached the attic door, a moment of hesitation gripped her. Pausing for a brief moment, she lifted her hand with a touch of uncertainty. The wood stood strong, though it bore the marks of time.

  Mrs. Welton closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and then rapped softly with her knuckles, the sound a delicate, almost timid knock against the quietude.

  “Edward?” she whispered into the quiet, her voice barely breaking the stillness of the attic. She leaned in.. The other side lingered in their silence. Her brow knitted together, a delicate line appearing between her eyes. She cast a fleeting look at the door handle, an urge to twist it, yet she held back.

  Instead, she knocked again, this time with a deeper intent, the sound echoing more profoundly through the room beyond.

  Silence. Thick and unmoving.

  Beyond the attic door, the room lay in comfortable chaos. The space was dim, save for the slivers of morning light through his curtains. casting long, golden beams across the floor.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Clothes strewn carelessly across the floor, some draped over the back of a chair, some half-tucked under the bed, some long forgotten.

  Books were everywhere. Its stacked haphazardly on the desk, toppled over on the nightstand, spread open on the unmade bed as if abandoned mid-thought.

  Loose parchment spilled onto the wooden floor, some pages crumpled, others torn at the edges. Half-sketched transmutation circles and scribbled formulas peeked out from beneath the clutter, most of them bore the chaotic scribbling of frustation.

  Its walls bore remnants of faded posters. Some curling at the edges, one hanging on by a single pin.

  A calendar sat pinned to the wall near the door, its pages frozen in time.

  The last date marked in red ink from seven years ago.

  26th of April, 1920.

  Near the farthest wall, a wooden desk was buried beneath the weight of research. Transmutation circles sketched and then discarded overflowed from a bin at the desk’s side. Diagrams detailing herbs, plants and mushrooms. Their alchemical properties meticulously annotated in a careful yet restless hand.

  Stacked books, their spines cracked from repeated use, bore names in gilded lettering—, Modern Alchemy by Magnus Borman, and a vintage tome The Ancient Arts of Alchemy signed only Catherine. Amid the scholarly collection sat a battered notebook filled with translations of an even older text, one written by Casnius Bolos, one of the nine sages of enlightenment. The Father of Alchemy.

  And slumped over it all, was the room’s lone occupant.

  His maroon diamond-patterned sweater hung loosely over his slumped shoulders, its sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His silver hair fell messily over his forehead, unkempt from restless nights. His posture was hunched, arms folded beneath his head, his breathing slow and steady in slumber.

  In his ears, a pair of makeshift headphones—wired together in an unorthodox fashion—hummed faintly with a distant, crackling signal. Plugged into an even more makeshift radio, the device played something indiscernible, some half-lost frequency from far beyond Weshaven. Whether it was music or the muffled voices of a broadcast, only he could tell.

  The knocking at the door continued. A soft, measured rhythm, persistent against the wood.

  Still, he did not stir. Succumbing to his sleep and the sounds from distant lands.

  -o-

  She knocked again—more resolutely, as if the sound itself could unravel the silence that enveloped the room.

  “Eddie?” She called, yet no answer.

  Mrs. Welton sighed, “Of course, I knew it’ll come to this.”

  Slipping her hand into her skirt pocket and touching her wand's smooth wooden surface. With a slight wrist movement, the wand appeared. A thin piece of dark oak with intricate interlocking ornaments.

  She pointed it at the door's lock, and a gentle click rattled the quiet attic, flickering the runes around the lock before dissolving into the shadows. She tucked her wand away and gently opened the door.

  The room was full of clutter.

  Mrs. Welton’s gaze swept the room, her eyebrows lifting slightly as she took in the disarray.

  “Of course,” she muttered under her breath, stepping carefully over a crumpled tunic on the floor. “A storm couldn’t have done a better job.”

  She stared at the figure slumped on the desk, immovable except for his breathing breathing. Crackling of faint jazz music could be heard from the makeshift headset on the radio.

  “Edward Welton! ” she yelled, her tone sharp but laced with exasperated fondness.

  The name cut through the attic like a thunderclap.

  Eddie jolted awake so violently that his chair tipped backward. His arms flailed, his headset yanked free with a sharp crackle of static, and the makeshift radio tumbled off the desk with a clatter.

  Books, parchments, loose papers exploded into the air, cascading down like confetti in a parade of overwork. His foot caught on something—maybe a discarded tunic, maybe an open book—and he tumbled off his chair entirely, landing flat on his back with a heavy thud.

  From the floor, he let out a groggy, half-incoherent groan. “Mum—what the hell?”

  Mrs. Welton, unimpressed, loomed over him with her hands on her hips. "You agreed weeks ago to accompany Torrie on her first day of school! I'm not letting her get lost in Osthaven while you spend all morning hibernating like some bear in a cave!"

  She crossed the room with purpose, the floorboards thumping beneath her feet.

  Eddie sat up, rubbing his silver hair, still blinking off the remnants of sleep. “Could you at least knock first?” he grumbled.

  "I did knock!" Mrs. Welton shot back, pointing at the unlocked door. "But you were too busy listening to—” she gestured vaguely at the tangled mess of wires, the radio now buzzing with distorted, half-drowned static. “—whatever that is.”

  Eddie picked up his fallen headset, giving the radio a once-over before dusting it off. "It's called jazz, Mum," he said, as if that explained everything. "They're pretty famous in the city, you know?"

  "Like I care about that, Edward!" Mrs. Welton huffed. "Now get up before Torrie is late for her first day at Aella!"

  Eddie groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Aella?" he muttered, his voice still thick with sleep. "Torrie’s in Aella now?"

  Mrs. Welton pinched the bridge of her nose. "She is. Did you forget that too?"

  "Look, Mum," Eddie pushed himself up, wincing as he untangled his legs from a mess of books and crumpled clothes. "It’s difficult to keep track of things when Dad’s remedies need tweaking every two days." He stretched, his back popping as he tried to shake off the last bits of sleep. "Can I clean up a bit before we go?"

  Mrs. Welton bent down with a sigh, picking up the books and papers that had scattered across the floor. Unlike Eddie, who left things in precarious heaps, she stacked them neatly, smoothing out crumpled pages before placing them back onto his desk.

  "You should at least try to keep things organized," she scolded, adjusting a pile of alchemy notes. "Honestly, Edward, I don’t know how you can work like this."

  "I do work like this," Eddie shot back as he pulled a fresh shirt from a chair—though it was debatable how fresh it actually was. He gave it a quick sniff before pulling it on. "I’ve been busy experimenting with potion ingredients for the apothecary. It’s not like I’m just lounging around."

  "Experimenting?" Mrs. Welton raised a skeptical brow, lifting a parchment with a half-sketched transmutation circle and an irritated scribble of DOES NOT WORK. "It looks more like you’ve been failing repeatedly."

  "That’s how experimentation works, Mum." Eddie said, "Trial and error... Well, errors, mostly."

  Mrs. Welton shook her head, muttering something about alchemy not excusing poor housekeeping as she continued gathering the mess. Eddie, meanwhile, laced up his boots at a painfully slow pace, buying time.

  Their banter bounced back and forth, the practiced rhythm of a mother and son who had long since mastered the art of exasperating each other. Eddie mumbled complaints about unfair criticism, while Mrs. Welton countered with pointed reminders about personal responsibility.

  Until—

  She paused.

  A single sheet of paper had slipped beneath a stack of old notes. As she reached for it, her fingers froze over the words printed neatly at the top:

  Sage Institute Scholarship Referral for University Program.

  Her eyes traveled lower.

  At the bottom, in crisp ink—

  Recipient: Edward Welton of Weshaven.

  Her breath hitched.

  "...Edward?" she said, quieter this time.

  "What?" Eddie turned around, still adjusting the sleeve of his brown field jacket.

  Mrs. Welton didn’t say anything at first. She just held up the letter.

  The paper was heavier than standard parchment, its edges embroidered with intricate silver filigree. The ink, a deep, rich black, had been pressed so precisely into the page that it hadn’t faded with time. Stamped at the bottom in dark blue wax was the unmistakable insignia of the Sage Institute—one of the highest authorities on magical education.

  "This," Mrs. Welton said slowly, tilting the letter toward him, "This is real. This is official. Care to explain what exactly it’s doing hidden under a pile of—” she gestured vaguely at the mess, “—whatever all this is?”

  Eddie blinked. Then, as if a switch flipped in his mind, he let out a short chuckle. "Oh, that?" He rubbed the back of his head, offering an easy grin. "That’s from long ago, remember? Gosh, I forgot how long ago that was."

  Mrs. Welton’s brows knitted together. "Is it from one of your competitions?"

  "Yeah, i think so." Eddie said.

  "You never told me you’ve got this."

  Eddie hesitated for just a fraction of a second before shrugging, he was already turning back toward the door, grabbing his satchel as he moved.

  "Look, it doesn’t matter now," he said, forcing an easygoing smile. "I’m off with Torrie. Bye, Mum!"

  And before she could stop him, he slipped out the door.

  Her lips pressed together, unreadable thoughts flickering behind her eyes as the floorboards creaked with Eddie’s retreating steps.

  Mrs. Welton stood there for a long moment, the letter still in her hands, her eyes lingering on the name at the bottom.

  Edward Welton of Weshaven.