Flame adjusted faster than anyone expected.
What had started as two children glaring at each other across the length of my arms turned into something else within the first week. Torra had apparently decided that showing Flame how Eryndor worked was his personal responsibility, and Flame had apparently decided that following Torra was preferable to navigating the settlement alone.
By the end of the second week they were inseparable in the particular way of children who have found each other and stopped questioning it.
Torra took his responsibilities seriously. He walked Flame through the public bath on the first day, demonstrating the faucet handles with the gravity of an expert. He introduced him to everyone by name, including the tarantula, which made Flame press himself behind Torra's shoulder until Torra explained patiently that the tarantula was also Leigh's and therefore safe.
The logic held.
Farming came next.
Torra handed Flame a basket at the strawberry patch with the confidence of someone delegating to a trusted partner. The strawberries were ready, fat and red and coming off the vine easily, and Torra moved along the row with practiced efficiency, dropping them in one by one.
He talked as he worked, explaining which ones were ripe and which ones needed another day, the things Benneth had taught him over the past weeks delivered now with complete authority to an audience of one.
He didn't look back for a while.
When he did, the basket behind him was empty.
Flame was at the far end of the row. His hands were stained red. His mouth was stained red. He was eating the strawberries directly off the vine with the focused dedication of someone who had found something worth dedicating himself to and saw no reason to stop.
Torra stared at him.
Flame looked up and met his eyes and reached for another strawberry.
"FLAME." Torra's voice cracked on the word. He looked at the empty basket. He looked at the row they had supposedly been harvesting together. He looked at Flame. "You ate ALL of them."
Flame looked at the basket. Then at Torra. Something in his expression suggested he had not fully considered the basket as a variable in this situation.
Torra burst into tears.
I could hear it from the tarantula enclosure.
•••••••••
The enclosure had become its own project.
The mother tarantula's babies had grown faster than I had calculated for, which meant I had miscalculated, which I noted and moved past. They were healthy and active and had developed something I hadn't anticipated.
Color.
The Glowfruit had done it. The mana content in the fruit, consumed consistently over weeks, had worked its way into the web production. Each young tarantula was producing webs in a different color, consistent to that individual, the hues vivid and clean. One spun pale gold. Another a deep green. A third produced something between blue and silver that caught the light differently depending on the angle.
I stood in the enclosure and looked at the color-sorted web collection and thought about market pricing.
Too much of any one thing in a market dropped the value of all of it. The Tarant fabric had been expensive because it was rare. Flooding Medalline or anywhere else with unlimited colored Tarant fabric would solve the immediate overflow problem and create a larger one.
I stored the surplus and made a note to be more deliberate about the release schedule. Oliver and Olivia would need to know the colors were available, but the production going to market needed to be controlled.
Speaking of which.
I went to the workstation.
I sat down with a notebook I had picked up from the Amlada market on the last trip and worked through it for an hour, pulling designs from the part of my memory that stored the previous life. Modern cuts. Structural choices that the twins wouldn't have seen before but would understand once they looked at them. Collar constructions, sleeve variations, the proportions that made the difference between something that fit and something that looked like it was supposed to fit.
I drew the designs and left the execution entirely to them.
Oliver picked up the notebook and turned the pages slowly, stopping at each drawing, his expression doing something that moved from curiosity to genuine excitement as he kept going.
"These are..." He looked up. "Where did these come from?"
"Memory." I said, and left them to it.
••••••••
Azylan had been watching me for three days.
Not obviously. He was subtle about it, the way someone is subtle when they're trying to answer a question without asking it. He asked the others things that seemed like casual conversation and got answers that clearly didn't help him, judging by the look on his face each time.
I was aware of it and let it run its course.
On the fourth day he came to me directly.
We were near the herb plots, which I had been checking on the Chilper growth rate since Amanda's next supply month was approaching.
"Leigh." He stopped beside me. "What do you look like."
I looked at him.
"I mean your actual face." He said. "I've been here a month. I've asked everyone. Apparently I'm the only person in Eryndor who hasn't seen it."
He wasn't wrong.
In Eryndor there was no reason for the illusion. I had been wearing it out of habit, the same automatic activation that ran whenever I stepped outside the settlement. Here, inside the walls, it served no purpose.
I dropped it.
Azylan's reaction was immediate. He stepped back. His hand came up slightly, not quite reaching for anything, just moving because his body needed somewhere to put the shock.
He stared at my face.
"Hero." He said. Barely audible.
I looked at him steadily and said nothing.
"Crescentine Fleur." He said it like he was verifying something he didn't trust himself to believe. "I saw you. The victory parade after Branklore. I was working in the capital at the time. I saw your face from the crowd." He shook his head slowly. "That face you can't forget. I should have known when I saw how strong you were, but I didn't think-"
"Leigh." I said.
He stopped.
"Here, I am Leigh." I said. "The hero you're thinking of is dead. The Emperor confirmed it. They framed the armor in the palace, I've heard. Very respectful ceremony."
Something moved across Azylan's face. Then he laughed.
It wasn't a short laugh. It built from somewhere genuine, the kind of laugh that comes when something is so perfectly absurd that the body doesn't know what else to do with it.
"They celebrated." He said, when he had enough breath back. "The whole empire. Banquets. Announcements. The Emperor gave a speech about sacrifice and legacy." He looked around at Eryndor. At the farm fields and the lamp posts and the Sequoia tree with Torra and Flame currently visible near it, Torra apparently explaining something to Flame with both hands while Flame ate what appeared to be a second helping of the strawberries Celina had washed and set out. "And you're here. Farming. Making a village."
"Making a settlement." I said.
"The most dangerous man in Philantria." He said. "Growing tomatoes."
"And herbs." I said. "Don't forget the herbs."
Azylan shook his head again, the disbelief settling into something quieter.
I let him have the moment. Then I looked at him directly.
"You don't know a hero." I said. "You never met one. You've been in Eryndor a month, you know the people here, you know what this place is. That's all you know." I paused. "If anything slips, if the name comes up anywhere it shouldn't, I'll make sure you forget you ever knew it. The memory, the face, all of it. I can do that cleanly and you won't know it happened."
Azylan looked at me.
Not afraid, exactly. But understanding the weight of what had just been said with complete clarity.
"Leigh." He said. "That's all I know."
He meant it.
I put the illusion back on and went back to checking the Chilper growth rate.
Already planning where to visit next for my next monthly shopping.