The walk to Henrik's forge felt longer than usual.
Word of the Guild's visit had already spread by the time Marcus reached the workshop. Henrik was waiting, but the familiar sounds of metalwork were nowhere to be heard.
The blacksmith sat on a stool beside the cold hearth, methodically sharpening tools. His movements had the focused intensity of someone keeping his hands busy while his mind worked through bad news.
"So," Henrik said without looking up, "the Guild's come calling."
Marcus dropped onto a pile of iron stock. The metal warmed under his touch—another reminder that his relationship with heat and steel was growing more complicated.
"News travels fast in small villages."
"Faster when it's blue robes making speeches about 'exceptional talent requiring immediate guidance.'"
Henrik finally raised his eyes. The look he gave Marcus was the kind reserved for men about to be hauled away by forces too big to fight.
"They're taking you to the Academy."
It wasn't a question.
"Tomorrow at dawn," Marcus confirmed. "Advanced Theoretical Track. Enchantment and alchemy." He managed a half-smile. "Apparently I've got 'promising potential that requires proper oversight.'"
Henrik snorted. "Oversight. Right. More like they want to figure out what kind of weapon you'll make and ensure they're the ones swinging it."
The forge fire had been banked for evening, but Marcus swore he felt it stirring—coals shifting, eager to flare back to life. Another piece of evidence that whatever was happening to him went far beyond normal metallurgy.
"You don't approve," Marcus said.
"Boy, I've worked iron longer than you've been alive. I've seen what happens when the Guild takes interest in someone's talent." Henrik set down his sharpening stone with deliberate care. "They don't educate. They collect."
The workshop felt different in the gathering dusk. Shadows stretched across familiar tools, making everything seem foreign. Tomorrow Marcus would leave this place that had become his first real laboratory in this world.
"What would you do?" Marcus asked quietly. "If it were you?"
Henrik ran his thumb along a blade's edge, testing the sharpness with automatic precision. "Twenty years ago? I'd have told them to shove their Academy and kept working honest iron till they dragged me off in chains."
He looked at Marcus with tired wisdom. "But that was when I thought righteous anger counted as strategy."
"And now?"
"Now I know sometimes the cage they offer is the only place you'll find tools to break out of it."
Henrik gestured around the forge—anvil, tongs, decades of accumulated knowledge. "This shop taught me everything about iron. But iron's got limits."
Marcus followed his gaze, mentally cataloging the equipment. Traditional forging was impressive within its constraints, but those constraints were absolute. Heat, hammer, quench—still just iron and carbon in the end.
But enchantment was applied magical theory. Alchemy was controlled transformation of matter itself. Combined with his knowledge of molecular chemistry, crystalline structures...
"You're thinking," Henrik observed. "Always dangerous when you do that."
"Both dangerous and good," Marcus said, unable to hide his grin.
"Henrik, what do you actually know about enchanted metallurgy?"
"Enough to know it exists. Not enough to be useful." Professional envy flickered across Henrik's weathered features. "Guild keeps even the basics locked away. Academy-only knowledge."
Marcus leaned forward, eyes gleaming with familiar academic excitement. "What if I told you enchanted metallurgy isn't just about sharper swords and harder armor?"
Henrik narrowed his eyes. "I'd say you're about to make my life more complicated."
Marcus laughed, reckless and bright. "What if proper enchantment could create materials that don't just perform better—but perform in ways that shouldn't be physically possible?"
He stood, pacing as his mind raced. "Steel lighter than aluminum but stronger than titanium. Alloys that store magical energy like batteries. Metals existing in stable states conventional physics says are impossible."
"And alchemy isn't just transmuting lead to gold. It's controlled material transformation. Understanding how to alter matter at the fundamental level."
Marcus stopped in front of Henrik, eyes bright with possibility. "They think they're collecting me for oversight and control. But they're actually giving me access to the exact theoretical framework I need to revolutionize everything."
Henrik shook his head slowly. "Boy, you think they'll just hand you their most dangerous knowledge and trust you to use it responsibly?"
"Of course not." Marcus's expression shifted, becoming more calculating. "They'll monitor me, test me, try to shape me into whatever tool they need. But here's the thing, Henrik—I've spent my life learning from people who thought they were smarter than me."
He settled back onto the iron stock, now noticeably warm despite the cold forge. "The trick isn't avoiding oversight. It's learning faster than they expect while staying predictable enough not to trigger suspicions."
Henrik was quiet for a long moment, studying Marcus with the expression of someone watching a natural disaster explain why it was actually beneficial.
"You're planning to learn everything they'll teach, then use it for purposes they won't approve of."
"I'm planning to learn everything, then return here with the knowledge to make this forge the most advanced metallurgical facility in the kingdom."
Marcus's voice carried quiet confidence. "They think education creates control. But education also creates capability."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with possibilities and the recognition that Marcus was embarking on something far more dangerous than traditional schooling.
Finally, Henrik stood and moved to the anvil, running his hand along its surface with reverence. "This anvil belonged to my grandfather, and his before him. Four generations of honest smiths, working honest iron, making honest tools."
He looked at Marcus with an expression mixing pride, concern, and something that might have been hope. "If you can learn to make that work better—if you can come back with knowledge that makes iron stronger, tools sharper, makes the work more than just hammering hot metal till it cooperates—then I suppose that's worth the risk."
Something tightened in Marcus's chest at the quiet trust in Henrik's voice. This man was betting his life's work on a twelve-year-old's promise to revolutionize metallurgy using knowledge he hadn't even learned yet.
"Henrik, I can't guarantee success. Can't even guarantee I'll survive whatever the Academy has planned."
"Boy, you spent twenty minutes in my forge and figured out better steel than I've been making for thirty years. You looked at a blade and saw stress fractures I couldn't. You touched my iron and made it glow like it was happy to finally meet someone who understood."
Henrik's voice carried absolute conviction. "I don't need guarantees. I need you to promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"When you come back—and you will, because I don't believe the Academy can contain someone like you permanently—remember that all this fancy theory is supposed to serve the work, not the other way around."
Marcus nodded, understanding the weight of Henrik's words. Stay grounded. Remember that knowledge existed to make things better, not just to prove mastery of complicated theories.
"I promise."
Henrik smiled for the first time since Marcus had arrived, the expression transforming his weathered face. "Good. Now get out of here before I change my mind about letting them take you from honest work to fill your head with Academy nonsense."
Marcus stood, taking one last look around the forge. Tomorrow he'd be surrounded by theoretical frameworks and institutional resources. But this—the smell of coal smoke, the weight of proper tools, the satisfaction of working with responsive materials—would be waiting when he returned.
"Henrik?"
"Yeah, boy?"
"When I come back, we're going to build something amazing."
The banked forge fire gave a small pulse of warmth that both men felt but neither mentioned.
Marcus walked home through village darkness, mind already spinning through theoretical possibilities. Behind him, Henrik returned to sharpening tools, but now his movements carried anticipation—someone preparing for work that hadn't been invented yet.
Tomorrow, the Academy. Formal magical education under institutional oversight.
But eventually he'd return to this forge with knowledge that would make the impossible routine and the theoretical practical.
The revolution would begin with proper education.
It would end with better iron.
And somewhere between those points, Marcus suspected he was going to discover exactly what kind of person he was becoming.
The dangerous kind, probably.
But the useful kind too.