The moon was being its usual tricksy thing—throwing that sneering silver light over everything as if it had been contracted to illuminate a perfume advertisement. Its beam streamed in through the nursery's magic curtains in feeble slashes, illuminating the wooden frame of the cradle to make it a small ship lost in a sea of moonlight.
Sharath was half asleep and "stealth readiness mode," which is a fancy term for his eyes were shut but his mind was on max espresso. The runes painted along the edge of the cradle were acting strange tonight. They usually throbbed slow and steady, their magical equivalent of a white noise mix. But tonight?
They had rhythm. Purpose. A beat that could be titled "Jazz Runes in C Minor.
🐧 [WARNING: EXTERNAL MAGICAL PROBE DETECTED.]
Sharath cracked one eye—not the full, glaring "I'm awake" crack, but the subtle, spy-handbook half-lid attempt that any experienced spy would admire.
And there he was.
Magister Aldric.
Not the "lovely old wizard" sort of magister you find in fairy tales. No, Aldric was the "I can read your mind but will instead speak in riddles that drive you mad for years" sort. His beard was precisely the length where you couldn't say whether it was for fashion or for storing. His robes? Padded enough to serve as a traveling library. And his eyes—oh, his eyes—held the burden of the man who knew all the shameful things you'd ever done… and might recite them back to you over the dinner table.
Aldric did not budge at first. He merely stood there in the doorway, silhouetted like a gothic oil painting, his body cut out by the candlelight behind him. Then, very slowly, he brought up one hand and drew a single rune in the air. The glyph glowed dimly, its form distorting into something that nipped at the magical wards around Sharath's cradle.
🐧 [DEFENSIVE PROTOCOLS: ENGAGED. PROJECTING AVERAGE INFANT COGNITION.]
That was NeuroBoop's nice way of saying, "Be as stupid as you can."
Aldric's eyes clenched a fraction. He wasn't scanning for magic residue—that was too superficial. This was more personal. This was a probe that cut through the obligatory flashing lights. Quiet, accurate. Like a magical polygraph where you didn't even realize you'd been wired up.
The magister finally opened his mouth, his voice slow and measured:
"What are you going to do with such genius, little one? Will you create—or destroy?"
Oh, great. Midnight philosophy in a man in cosmic pajamas.
Sharath pondered his choices:
Choice A: Drool excessively to remind them of "helpless baby" persona.
Choice B: Gaze blankly as if he'd just seen some very interesting corner of the ceiling.
Choice C: Whisper something in perfect Runic and totally blow his cover.
Choice A swept the competition aside.
So he lowered his eyelids, breathed softly, and appended the barest sleepy sigh for dramatic flair.
No shaking. No telltale smirk. Just… agh, pure, innocent baby.
And then, just to get into the spirit of things, because he was feeling especially dedicated to the role, he allowed his pendant to reflect the candlelight, looking like the patron saint of bedtime wholesomeness.
Aldric looked at him for another eternal second, then nodded—as if he'd discovered the answer he was seeking, even if Sharath himself hadn't the slightest notion of what question was being posed. The magister wordlessly turned and disappeared into the corridor like a highly critical specter.
🐧 [ANALYSIS: HIGH-LEVEL SURVEILLANCE. MAGISTER IS LEAVING YOU ROOM TO PROVE YOURSELF.]
"Room to prove myself?" Sharath wondered. "Or room to hang myself?"
Once Aldric was out of the way and the runes fell back into their usual drowsy rhythm, Sharath moved. From under his pillows, he produced his most prized possession: a tiny piece of vellum. It was an unassuming thing to the untrained eye, but to Sharath this was the Rosetta Stone of his own personal revolution.
The seams were worn from being smuggled in and out of hiding places (in booties, under his bassinet, once in the folds of a particularly bulk diaper). By candlelight—securely protected by the cradle's magic—he opened it to show lines of drawings and notes that would've made any royal librarian swoon with excitement or fear.
Here was the engineer in him, let loose.
He had schematics of Energy Flow Modifiers—small arrows mapping how magical currents changed when the caster was angry, relaxed, or just hungry. There were Priority Chains, where he prioritized enchantments not by strength but by emotional trigger. (He'd found that "cozy nostalgia" actually fueled defensive wards more effectively than "raw panic.")
In the bottom right corner was his personal favorite: a doodle titled If-Whispers—mental if-then declarations for casting spells quietly.
Example:
If rune = heat AND heart = serenity, then harden shield.
No wand twirling. No spells. Only thought… and will.
🐧 [RECORDING COMPLETE. SECURITY LEVEL: IMPREGNABLE.]
He gently tapped the vellum, a soft knock on the threshold of a shared mind palace.
🐧 [CO-AUTHOR STATUS: ACCEPTED. THIS IS NOW OFFICIALLY SECRET NOTEBOOK NO. 1: "BEHIND THE PILLOWS."]
The title was picked for precision and because it read like the title of a political thriller.
NeuroBoop wasn't merely logging data—it was processing patterns in real-time, proposing modifications, highlighting flaws in spell logic. Together, they weren't merely writing magic; they were programming feelings into the code of reality.
Which was, admittedly, a great deal for a man whose greatest public achievement was "once grasped his own foot for thirty seconds consecutively."
Naturally, protecting this notebook from prying eyes was a full-time occupation. The nursery was a door that turned constantly as curious servants, excessively doting relatives, and random court officials who had no business leaning in over his cradle to coo, "Ooooh, what a bright little face!"
Last week, the assistant to one of the stewards almost sat on the notebook when they came in to modify the ward settings of the cradle. Sharath was forced to pretend to sneeze so ferociously that it sent them out of the room.
Another instance was when a toddler cousin attempted to take the vellum for "making paper hats." That one involved Sharath intentionally vomiting on the cousin's tunic. Drastic, indeed. Effective, yes.
In the past, candlelight danced as Sharath wrote down another note:
Note: Magister Aldric's probes circumvent ordinary detection wards. Probable method = emotional resonance mapping. Need countermeasure.
He clicked his quill (okay, it was actually a repurposed feather from one of the spell-enabled nursery mobiles) against his chin. Countermeasures against emotional resonance weren't precisely taught in novice's runic primer books.
🐧 [SUGGESTION: OVERLOAD PROBE WITH RANDOMIZED BABY EMOTIONS. ALTERNATE BETWEEN EXTREME CUTENESS AND UNEXPLAINABLE SHRIEKS.]
Ah, yes. Infant mood swings turned into weapons. A masterstroke, indeed.
Sharath snickered quietly, which—if heard by anyone—would have been dismissed as "adorable gurgling." He closed the vellum slowly, shoving it back under the pillow with the reserve of one hiding a priceless gemstone.
Then he reclined, gazed at the ceiling, and allowed himself to dream of the future. A future in which these runic codes could be more than they had ever been—more than spells—they could be systems. Magical systems that sustained themselves by means not of raw power, but of the hidden tides of human emotion.
He didn't merely wish to learn magic. He wished to debug it.
Down the corridor, a door shut. Footsteps came closer. He quickly fell into "helpless baby" mode: one limp arm hung over his blanket, mouth half-open, small snore activated.
The nurse stuck her head in, spotted the image of purity, and breathed softly to herself, "Cute little angel."
If only she did.