Little T. fell silent. Her cheery attitude was now a comfortable, controlled blank slate.

  “Mm-hmm,” was all Indra heard from the young girl. The woods' biome shifted back to a placid, generic forest. The wind fell still. She thought of the difficulty her father faced.

  “Indra,” Little T. questioned in a small voice. “Is my father… right? Can’t everyone just stay?”

  Indra hesitated in her task, though never looking for a moment away from the things before her.

  “Your father has never been wrong,” she replied. “He’s never led us astray. And he has learned the true name of all things in between all spaces.” Her voice became firmer and serious. “He is old and yet still young in spirit. Wise beyond years, yet willing to learn from anyone. I have placed my trust in your father. Whether you do the same is your choice.”

  Little T. was still silent as the clouds above began to grow gray, allowing peeks of the bright blue sky above to break through.

  “I don’t know,” Little T. said, almost to herself.

  Indra stood, and picking up the bucket, walked over and gently placed a hand on Little T.’s shoulder.

  “To make the maple bread, I’ll need some fresh maple syrup. Do you think you can handle that for me?” Her tone was soft and reassuring.

  The gray clouds slowly began to roll back. Little T. rose to her feet, realizing that it’s not all on her. Her father could still very well be right. That all this could work out. And everyone could live happily ever after, just like one of the books Minos sometimes read to them—oh no!

  The world snapped into clear focus as she began to peel back into the house, remembering what she had to get done for the day, for the perfect day. She ran up the stairs of the massive estate.

  The top floor was used for learning; the space held three rooms with all kinds of utilities. The first one had a double door made of oak and bronze. Inside was the library, her little brother's private quarters, and the agility nets, where they’d spend rainy days reading or seeing how long they could hang upside down.

  The second had a single large door, made completely out of metal. This door was a traveling portal. It had a few preset destinations that opened to different terrains.

  Last was the gold door with redwood trim. This was a simple and regular-sized door. It was always locked, and it was the door her father always used to leave. He was the only one allowed to leave freely, allowed to be free—at least for the time being.

  The first door, though, was what she needed right at that moment.

  She went inside and quietly shut the door behind her. Little T. took in the view. It took her breath away every time.

  The room consisted of dark wood shelves that lined up in a circle, meeting at a point in the center of the room. Each shelf held books of differing subjects, all categorized in alphabetical order. She smelled old parchment papers, which held the studies of all kinds of things, lining this place of knowledge. The space between things was always filled with wonder, words, and whimsy. Little T. never really could stay in this room too long, but her appreciation of it never diminished. No, it was not her space to fill, but quietly writing away on a sheet of paper with books thrown about, was her little brother, Minos, sitting at a long desk in the middle of the room.

  With her bare feet making no sound, she quietly moved over to the dictionary section and thumbed through a series of other books. She tried not to disturb her little brother as he worked on one of his many theories about the metaphysical nature of magic.

  “I just don’t get it,” said a small, frustrated voice. She knew that voice well. That was the sound he made right before he started crying.

  With the book she needed already in hand, she gingerly walked over to her brother, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  “You’ll figure this out,” she said in a confident tone. “You were made for this.”

  They shared a nice familial moment for a beat.

  “Here,” she said as she placed the book in her hand on the table. “I need a new word for today. Why don’t you take a break and help me pick one?”

  Minos shook his head.

  “I can’t waste any more time. Father is counting on me, and if I don’t get this done…” the last word trailed off as he bit back a sob.

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  Little T. clenched her fists to keep them from shaking, but her voice was still level and gentle.

  “Father puts too much pressure on you. Magic is to be experienced, not controlled. It’s not meant to be split into binary schools of thought.”

  “That’s the fun of it, though,” Minos said, raising his head slightly to stare up at his sister. Those big, crystalline blue eyes held so much knowledge behind them. However, the bags underneath his eyes were what she really noticed. He was pushing himself so hard. And for what? Just to potentially make a marginal difference? But those are thoughts she knew to keep to herself lest Pyra catch wind.

  Minos continued while she thought. “Understanding the different schools of thought isn’t all that much trouble.”

  He paused, flexing and stretching his hands as he tried to find the words.

  “It’s… It’s about making them work in conjunction with each other, to not only have the ability to recite magic, but to understand why IS magic. In this world of physics and science, magic is also an additive that can mold and shape the world around us. It is, in and of itself, a primal force that only a few can actively wield. Trying to make this concept understandable for the mortals to grasp wasn’t easy, but it’s worthwhile. It’ll give them a chance to shape their own future—to shape their own destiny.”

  Little T. stared down at Minos. The conviction in his tone left her feeling uneasy. Father had already sworn him to the cause at such a young age, and she didn’t know how to feel about it. On one hand, she understood the importance of Father’s work. But on the other hand, Minos was just a child, and he had never had the chance to just be a child.

  This was why she went to such lengths to engage with her sibling. Unlike the other ones, she and Minos were close. Their worlds were very similar. Primal. Where she was wild, he was ordered, and so his thoughts reflected that.

  “He left today,” he said in a small voice. “Father’s left for the summit. I want to help him the best that I can, and I know if I push myself, he’ll finally see all the hard work I’ve done.”

  Little T. stared at her brother with a mix of emotions.

  “Perfect doesn’t always look the way that you think it does.” Her tone was encouraging but firm. “Ecosystems are a wild kind of perfect. There are over a million different things that rely on one another, but they also make a whole. You can’t find all the answers you are looking for in the library. At some point, you’re gonna have to go explore more of what this world has to offer. Not just here in the garden.”

  She indicated her book sitting next to him and pointed out a word.

  “What do you think about this? I’m already late for my lessons with Rufus, and I have to have a word ready before I leave.”

  The word was Fortuitous.

  “You keep picking words that are conversationally unnecessary,” Minos said in a dry tone. “When are you going to teach him words that will actually help him build a sentence?”

  “When he learns all the big words first,” she replied with a wry smirk. “And is it not funny to hear a dog use four-syllable words out of context?”

  Flashing her brother a reassuring smile, she darted out the door and headed down the stairs. Finding the nearest window, she made her way back into her meadows, which had calmed back into a more natural state.

  Deep in the heart of the woods, Little T. knew the way. She crossed over mini brooks and fallen stumps, took three turns past the mulberry tree, and then took a headlong dive into a burro. Little T. shimmied her shoulders to go into the burrow hole, as it got bigger and bigger, leading her into a secret meadow.

  Her green eyes and black hair popped out of the hole first. There, her gaze landed on the hidden meadow within the overarching trees, a canopy of shadow and rest. In the middle of this canopy, lying on its back, on a bed of leaves, with paws hanging out, was her furry companion, Rufus.

  Rufus was a long, gray dire wolf with sharp claws and even sharper teeth. Standing on his hind legs, he was about ten feet tall. But Little T. had raised him since he was a pup. She and Rufus had history—the world between them full and vibrant.

  She quietly moved through the still, sleeping part of the forest, not making a single sound. Then, like a bobcat, she sprang on top of her furry friend, eliciting a surprised howl. Rufus was caught unarmed, and it just wounded his pride. He quickly flung her off and stood on all fours, glaring at her.

  “Humorous was not,” he said in his broken grammar, his voice low and guttural.

  “Oh, come on, Rufus, all's fair,” replied Little T. with a hint of reproach. “You got me last week, remember? I was climbing up that tree, and you barked so loud I felt the whole tree shake mid-step.”

  Little T. stood, folding her arms.

  Rufus only snorted hot air toward her and began to find a new spot to lie down.

  “Oh no, you don’t! We have lessons today, sir.”

  She walked over with her arms outstretched like two giant crab claws.

  Rufus began to circle and lay down nonchalantly, ignoring her.

  “You old fart.”

  Then Little T. climbed on top of him, getting to the square of his back where his neck met his shoulders. She began to scratch her dear friend viciously with her nails.

  The following sound of a hammer thumping the ground was commonly understood to be Rufus’s tail. This lasted for a few minutes before she finally relented and stared after her old friend. He opened one eye in interest, seemingly prepared for the new word of the day.

  Hours went by, and she did her best to accentuate the different points. Going so far as to use it in different senses, placement, and grammar, until finally, Rufus could bark it out.

  “Fortuitous.”

  With midday approaching, she set out to complete Indra’s task to go find some maple. Riding on Rufus’s back through the different biomes of her forest was much faster than the morning run she had done earlier. The rush of wind through her hair, the smell of the world around her, how everything was fresh and new, temporary and changing, was a surreal sense. She felt time rush past her, as if she were a stone in a riverbed. Unchanging, unmoving, while the water ran over her.

  Almost as quickly as the thought came, it had left, and her attention was brought back into the present. Rufus picked up the scent and was closely approaching.