The trouble began with a broken lantern.
Caelan found it on a Thursday afternoon in his father's workshop, sitting on the corner of a workbench beside a collection of damaged tools. Its glass casing was intact, but the small crystal inside had stopped glowing.
Garrick had brought it home for inspection after a merchant complained that it had failed during a journey.
"Can it be repaired?" Caelan asked.
"Probably," his father replied. "But first, I need to determine why it stopped working."
"Is the crystal broken?"
"That's one possibility."
Caelan leaned closer without touching it. He could sense the faint presence of magic within the lantern, though it was weaker than he expected.
"There's still magic inside."
Garrick glanced at him. "Good observation. That doesn't tell us whether the enchantment is functioning properly."
Caelan nodded. He had heard that lesson enough times to remember it.
His father removed the crystal and examined its surface beneath a magnifying lens. After a few moments, he frowned.
"Interesting."
"What?"
"Look at the inner edge."
Caelan moved to the other side of the workbench. A thin, dark line ran along one side of the crystal, almost hidden beneath its surface.
"Is that a crack?"
"It might be."
"Would that stop the lantern from working?"
"It could interfere with the enchantment."
Garrick placed the crystal into a small testing frame. When he activated the instrument, a pale light appeared around the crystal, flickered twice, and disappeared.
He repeated the test.
The same thing happened.
Caelan watched closely. The glow did not fade gradually. It seemed to falter at a particular point, as if something interrupted the flow.
"Can I try sensing it?"
"From here. Don't touch the frame."
Caelan closed his eyes.
At first, he sensed only the familiar presence of magic. He concentrated, trying to distinguish the crystal's energy from the enchantment surrounding it.
Then he noticed something he could not quite describe.
The magic seemed uneven.
Not weaker everywhere, but irregular in one particular area. It reminded him of a sentence in which one word had been repeated incorrectly, disrupting the rhythm of everything around it.
He opened his eyes.
"Something feels wrong near that side."
Garrick examined the crystal again.
"The side with the dark line?"
"I think so."
"Think carefully before you answer. Are you sensing a difference, or are you expecting one because you've seen the mark?"
Caelan paused.
He had been about to say that he was certain.
Instead, he took a breath and tried again.
"I can sense a difference. But I don't know if the mark is causing it."
His father nodded approvingly.
Garrick adjusted the testing frame and activated it once more. This time, he changed the angle of the crystal.
The glow lasted a little longer before failing.
Caelan noticed the same irregularity.
He could not explain what he was sensing, but the sensation appeared consistently enough to interest him.
His father continued the examination for another twenty minutes before setting the crystal aside.
"The enchantment is damaged," he concluded. "I'll need a better instrument to determine the extent of the damage."
"Did I help?"
"You gave me something worth investigating."
Caelan considered that a satisfactory result.
He had not repaired the lantern. He had not discovered the cause of the fault. But he had noticed something his father had not initially identified, and that observation had influenced the investigation.
For the first time, his magical sensitivity had contributed to a practical problem.
It was a small achievement.
He was careful not to make it larger than it was.
Two days later, Tomas arrived at Caelan's house with news.
"There's a problem at the old mill."
Caelan looked up from his book.
"What kind of problem?"
"The magical wheel has stopped."
Mira, who had accompanied Tomas, folded her arms.
"He's making it sound more exciting than it is."
"The wheel stopped in the middle of the morning!" Tomas protested. "People had to carry everything by hand."
"That doesn't make it exciting."
"It makes it a problem."
Caelan closed his book.
The old mill stood beside a stream outside the main village. Its wheel used a simple enchantment to maintain a steady rotation when the water flow became irregular. Garrick had explained its workings to him once, though Caelan had never seen the mechanism up close.
"Did someone inspect it?" he asked.
"The miller tried," Tomas said. "He couldn't get it moving again."
"Then why are we discussing it?"
"Because I thought you might want to see it."
Mira sighed. "He wants to see whether you can fix it."
"I never said that!"
"You were about to."
Tomas looked offended, which Caelan took as confirmation.
"I can look at it," Caelan said. "That doesn't mean I can repair it."
"Fine. Let's go."
The mill was quieter than usual when they arrived. The miller stood beside the wheel housing, speaking with a village mechanic who had already removed one of the outer panels.
Caelan stayed at a distance until the man noticed them.
"Come to watch?" the mechanic asked.
"Yes," Caelan replied honestly.
"Then watch from behind that line. There's residual magic in the mechanism, and I don't want anyone interfering with the inspection."
Caelan obeyed.
The exposed mechanism contained a set of metal rings and several small crystals arranged around a central axle. Nothing about it looked particularly unusual, but he could feel the presence of magic more strongly than he had in the lantern. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
The mechanic examined the crystals one by one.
After a while, he muttered something under his breath and reached for a tool.
Caelan watched as the man adjusted a metal ring. The enchantment responded with a brief shimmer, then fell silent again.
"What's wrong with it?" Caelan asked.
The mechanic glanced over.
"Something is preventing the stabilizing enchantment from maintaining its cycle."
"Is it damaged?"
"Possibly."
"Could something be interrupting it?"
The mechanic studied him for a moment.
"That is another possibility."
He returned to his work.
Caelan felt a familiar frustration. He could sense the magic, and he could tell that something was irregular, but he lacked the knowledge to determine what it meant.
He was tempted to concentrate harder, hoping the answer would become clear.
Instead, he watched.
The mechanic adjusted one crystal, then another. Each time, the enchantment briefly responded before failing again.
Finally, the man removed a small metal connector from between two rings.
A thin layer of dark residue coated its surface.
"There's the problem," he said.
The connector had deteriorated, disrupting the connection between two parts of the enchantment. The mechanic replaced it with a new component and carefully reassembled the mechanism.
When he activated the wheel, the crystals lit in sequence.
The wheel began to turn.
Tomas grinned. "See? Fixed."
Caelan barely heard him.
He had been watching the enchantment as it restarted.
For a fraction of a second, he thought he had felt the irregularity disappear just before the mechanism resumed its cycle.
Perhaps that was what had happened.
Perhaps he was merely interpreting the sequence after seeing the result.
He had no way to be certain.
On the walk home, he wrote down what he remembered.
Observation: The enchantment repeatedly failed to maintain its cycle.
Cause discovered: A deteriorated connector.
Unconfirmed impression: The magical irregularity disappeared immediately before the mechanism restarted.
He stared at the last line for a moment.
Then he underlined unconfirmed.
He was learning.
Not quickly enough to satisfy his curiosity, perhaps, but steadily enough to keep going.
And somewhere beneath that growing patience was a question he still could not answer.
Why had his affinity assessment produced that unusual silver shimmer?
For now, he closed his notebook and returned to his lessons.
There would be other broken things.
Other problems.
And, eventually, better questions.