“I never liked .”

  That was the first thing Smiley said before the grave. Beside him, Astera, Bernt, and Romina stood in silence, burdened by the solemn weight of the morning. No one spoke. No one dared disturb that sacred mourning. They simply left their offerings before the still-unnamed stone, crowned with flowers already beginning to wilt with the dew.

  It was nine sharp. Too early for death, too late to ignore it. Classes that day would have to be delayed, or perhaps canceled altogether. The sun barely rose, timidly painting the sky in warm tones that didn’t match the coldness of the moment. Ironic: while one life faded, the light of the world was being born. As if reality insisted on reminding you that, even in your absence, everything keeps turning.

  At five in the morning, a phone call shattered the headmistress’s rest. She woke up startled, answered still half-asleep—and the silence on the other end was enough to freeze her blood. She turned on the TV. The dark living room filled with the orange glow of fire on the screen.

  “Violent explosion in a Westbridge neighborhood home. Early reports indicate a possible gas leak. Firefighters are working at the scene to extinguish the blaze.”

  Astera didn’t need to hear the name. She recognized the fa?ade immediately. The house of her colleague—the man she had worked with for over twenty years—was burning to its foundations. The body, they said later, had been left unrecognizable. The pets, the car, everything consumed. Only smoke. Only ash.

  Under the pale light of dawn, their breaths showed in the air like fragile clouds.

  No one understood it. Sebastian? The most meticulous man in the world, dead from a gas leak? He, who counted his steps while climbing the castle stairs each day. Who reviewed a spell three times before speaking it. It didn’t fit. Nothing did.

  Bernt held Romina, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They only shared that raw silence of those who understand that, sometimes, death makes no sense at all.

  It was in moments like these that the headmaster missed his old mortal body. One capable of crying, of trembling, of emptying itself the way his colleagues did beside him.

  But he couldn’t. All he could do was accept loss in silence, with that unnatural calm granted by his condition.

  And still, something didn’t fit.

  Smiley, whose name evoked an almost cartoonish joy, wasn’t smiling. The frown cracked his mask. There was a piece out of place in the puzzle, and he knew it.

  He remembered how Sebastian had grown quieter over the past months. More distant. Always the first to leave meetings, the last to answer a conversation. At the time, Smiley had assumed it was simple obsession with punctuality—or a too-private life. But no: something lay behind it.

  He also recalled that day, years ago, when the university expelled him. Sebastian had trembled uncontrollably with rage, raving about his machine, his dream of giving magic to everyone. “The universal gift,” he had called it.

  Smiley had patted him on the back before saying what now weighed on him like an epitaph:

  “You can’t alter the course of nature, son.”

  After that, he’d offered him a stable job. For years, everything went peacefully. Classes passed, generations changed, and the biggest scandals were the complaints of parents about uniforms and grades. Nothing compared to this: an explosion, a charred body, an empty space in their lives.

  Yet the change had begun earlier. Smiley had noticed it: that new nervousness in Sebastian since the arrival of the two girls. The crow with red eyes. The swan with sky-blue gaze. Feralynn and Miria.

  Curious. Very curious. But most of all? Dangerous, for all of them.

  His instincts, sharpened by centuries, began to work. The disappearances of blank children. The arrival of the Blackwood heir. The death of Sebastian.

  A few pieces scattered on the table. The solid evidence still missing—the thread that explained what was coming… and how to stop the fire from spreading further.

  He knew it might be the work of The Design.

  That damned group that, decades ago, had been a thorn in the world’s side: bombings, purges, assassinations of non-mages. The same organization that had stolen from him his best pyromantic prodigy.

  But their operations had been dismantled, thanks to the cooperation of law enforcement and the royal guard. The Spellborne had managed countless arrests, all bound for the Red Bastion: the prison reserved for the worst of mages on the region.

  “No one else came,” Bernt said with resigned sorrow, lighting a cigarette before offering one to Romina. “I’d like to think it’s just because of the hour, but… Sebi was never one for many friends.”

  “Only child,” Smiley clarified, eyes lost on the nameless stone. “Raised by his grandparents. They died a long time ago.”

  “Seems we were always his only family…” murmured Romina, the cigarette hanging from her cold lips. “I’m gonna miss our nerd…”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Yeah,” exhaled Bernt in defeat. “me too…”

  Had he truly been linked to that organization? The mere thought of a traitor within the Academy drove a bitter splinter into Smiley’s wooden heart. Because that would mean he had once again trusted blindly in others. And for someone like him, that was an unforgivable mistake.

  He’d have to return to his old methods: reviewing memories, digging into minds, probing as deep as possible.

  Memory erasure. Alteration of recollections. Cognitive introspection.

  Forbidden mental techniques he despised using. Not for their mana cost, no. But for the emotional toll. Because every mind was a pit, and he had seen too many: traumas, frustrations, desires rotted by time. Each one wore him down a little more.

  “I’ll make the announcement,” Astera said in her usual firm tone, though her voice cracked a moment before tightening again. “Classes are cancelled for today.”

  Smiley glanced at her sideways, nodding faintly in silence—a small gesture of sincere gratitude. He didn’t believe himself capable of even pretending courtesy or sweetness before the students.

  Slowly, the three departed, leaving the immortal puppet alone before the grave. With his hands clasped behind his back, Smiley raised his gaze to the sky. The dawn tinted the world with a soft gold, as if the day itself resisted beginning.

  He remained motionless, remembering his own past in the long forgotten Isdran. The atrocities his King did. The fire. So, so much fire and pain…

  Only the timid song of birds and the rustle of leaves danced to a gentle breeze.

  “I know you’re there. Come out. I’m not in the mood for games.”

  The silence lasted a few seconds. Then, the crunch of leaves betrayed him: a man advanced among the tombs, his steps slow and deliberate—not out of respect for the dead, but caution before the headmaster’s presence.

  “Friend of Sebi?” Smiley asked without turning, tilting his head slightly. “I sense a trace of cursed energy in your body. Speak.”

  The leaves crunched again, closer this time. The man stopped beside him.

  “He didn’t die in a fire,” Vans said. The dark rings under his eyes marked a sleepless night.

  Smiley lifted his shoulders, calm to the point of resignation.

  “Figures. There are rotten apples with holes in my basket, yet I can’t find the worms.” He looked at him sideways. “You’re a blank. You couldn’t have killed him with a hex. Oh, unless you carry a cursed artifact, but from your looks you don’t, right?”

  Vans shook his head in silence, far too tired to pretend any of this made sense.

  “He came to my apartment last night. He was talking like a madman. At first pure nonsense babbled … Told me interesting things. Said I shouldn’t tell anyone but you. Then, his body began to disintegrate in that purple light. Melted and evaporated to dust.”

  Smiley tilted his head the other way, processing each word with surgical slowness.

  “He broke an oath,” he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his supposed nose in frustration. He exhaled a sigh that weighed like a million coffins. “What the fuck did you do, Sebi…?”

  Silence blanketed the cemetery again.

  CLAP!

  Until the dry sound of clapping broke it. Vans flinched.

  “Jolly good show!” Smiley exclaimed, suddenly regaining his usual, almost cheerful tone. “I imagine you have so, so much to tell me. How about you do it over a couple of donuts, hmm? I just know a wonderful café nearby! Don’t worry, my treat!”

  The detective stared at him, incredulous, while the other had already turned with a smile that looked painted on.

  “Oh, forgive my manners,” Smiley added with an overly theatrical gesture. “If I’m going to hear a single thing about sorrow, I’d at least like to have breakfast first. Most important meal of the day! Quite cheers you up, actually!”

  Vans blinked, confused by the puppet’s sudden shift, but eventually nodded. Tense, he followed in silence—unsure whether he was accompanying a wise man… or a madman who had simply learned to live with his own madness.

  Smiley stopped abruptly, just as the detective was about to ask a question.

  “Heavens… I almost forgot my beautiful disguise!”

  Vans frowned. He didn’t have time to respond before the puppet raised his hand, intertwining his index and middle fingers in a delicate gesture that contrasted sharply with the energy beginning to radiate from him.

  “Alteration Style: Body’s Veil.”

  The air vibrated. A poof! sounded like the blast of a birthday cannon, followed by a dense cloud of sparkling smoke. Vans stepped back instinctively, covering himself with an arm. A second later, a rain of glitter and confetti fell over the nearby tombstones.

  From the smoke emerged a different figure. Human. Tall. Elegant.

  “This is what I get for never leaving the castle,” said the new Smiley, brushing nonexistent dust off his shoulders. “I’ve turned into a complete old hermit, hoh!”

  The change was astonishing.

  Where once stood a small wooden marionette, now rose a young, well-groomed man: neatly brown hair, warm hazel eyes, a red-wine suit perfectly fitted to his frame, and a small red circle painted on each cheek—as if part of the puppet’s memory refused to vanish completely.

  Vans stared, speechless.

  He had arrested sorcerers who had tried similar spells, but none had managed a perfect transformation. There were always telltale flaws—crooked fingers, waxy skin, dull eyes. Smiley, on the other hand, looked completely human. Too human for comfort.

  The headmaster smiled with that effortless arrogance that preceded all his outbursts. Vans blinked, twice.

  “Are you telling me this whole time you could've appeared human?”

  “Yep!”

  “...You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

  “Oh, don’t you put on that grumpy face now! Do I look that bad?” he laughed at the detective’s petrified reaction. “Surely you didn’t think I’d walk into a café as a puppet, did you? I have a reputation to maintain! Academic stardom and all of that exhausting nonsense.”

  “Right, right…”

  His tone was light, but his aura was unmistakable—that faint shimmer in the air, that presence bending logic itself. Vans opened his mouth to reply, but the world shattered before he could.

  SNAP!

  Smiley snapped his fingers, and the world shattered.

  …

  …

  …

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