Levi did not build a wall.
He didn't carve a home.
He didn't even stack the stone he had summoned.
For an entire week, he did absolutely nothing with his newfound powers.
Nothing but lie under shade, summon berries into his mouth, and wave away flies with the same carved stick that once earned him his first piece of wood.
The people of Bogwater passed him by like he was a mad beggar. Even the village goats seemed to give him a wider berth. At first, some folk had looked curious—wondering what the strange boy with the faint accent and too-clean hands might be planning with his idle staring and half-hidden smiles.
But a week later?
They stopped wondering.
Mae had enough on the seventh day.
She burst out of the hut with a cloth-wrapped ladle still dripping stew, her white hair pulled tight and her voice sharper than a butcher's knife.
"Boy!" she barked.
Levi blinked up from his patch of dirt. "Aye?"
"You've been crawling in my shadow like a flea. Either be useful or go out and die somewhere else."
He sat up slightly, one leg folded over the other. "Die? That's a bit harsh."
"You think these woods feed the lazy? You think food just appears for those who lie on their backs and whistle? Out! Go find your own luck or let the gods bury you in muck."
He scratched his head. "Can't I stay until harvest?"
Mae pointed at him with the ladle. "You're a lizard's fart away from being pickled in the root cellar, boy. Out."
Levi sighed, then stood with a groan like he'd been roused from a hundred-year slumber. He dusted himself off—though there wasn't much difference—and slung his empty sack over one shoulder.
He looked Mae dead in the eye, gave her a crooked smile, and said, "I'll be back a rich man. No doubt."
And then he turned with the dignity of a lord and marched toward the village path.
Behind him, Jory's laughter burst out like thunder.
Levi stopped mid-step. "Why are you even here?"
Jory leaned against the fence behind Mae's home, arms folded and eyes full of mischief. "Didn't know you had such fine ambitions. Rich, was it? From berries and mud?"
Mae snorted. "If he gets lost, don't look for him. The swamp'll spit him back out if he's lucky."
Levi didn't reply.
He just kept walking.
Not far, of course. He had no intention of venturing beyond the next tree unless he had to.
But a rich man, she said? No. That was his line.
And for once, he meant to prove it.
Just… maybe not today.