One week into his new life, Dudian had established a routine.
Mornings with Professor Thorne, where he diligently pretended to struggle through reading and arithmetic while secretly absorbing everything twice as fast as the old man realized. Afternoons with Marta in the kitchen, where his Earth baking knowledge produced increasingly impressive results—croissants this week, much to the household's delight. Evenings with the twins, building forts, staging pillow battles, and generally causing controlled chaos.
And always, always, the awareness of being watched.
Mira was everywhere and nowhere. He'd catch glimpses—a shadow that moved wrong, a flicker in his peripheral vision, the faintest whisper of fabric. She never spoke during the day. Only at night, when she'd whisper "Go to sleep, brat" from the darkness.
It should have been unsettling. Somehow, it was comforting.
Tonight, however, was different.
"You've been here a week," Lady Hathaway announced at dinner. "Tomorrow, we begin your real education."
Dudian looked up from his plate. "Thorne isn't real education?"
"Thorne is formal education. Reading, writing, history—the things every noble child needs." She smiled. "I'm going to teach you the things no one else can."
"Which are?"
"Magic. Politics. The art of being terrifying." She sipped her wine. "The Hathaway family specialties."
Dudian felt a thrill of anticipation. Finally. Magic.
The next morning, Lady Hathaway led him to a part of the estate he hadn't seen before.
The training room was enormous—easily the size of the grand dining room, but empty except for padded floors, reinforced walls, and scorch marks that suggested centuries of magical practice. Crystals embedded in the ceiling glowed with soft light. The air itself felt different here. Charged.
"This is where I learned," Lady Hathaway said, closing the heavy door behind them. "And where my mother learned, and her mother before that. Hathaways have been training here for five hundred years."
Dudian looked at the scorch marks with new respect. "You caused those?"
"Some. My mother caused more. She had a temper." Lady Hathaway smiled fondly. "Now. Sit."
Dudian sat cross-legged on the padded floor.
Lady Hathaway sat across from him, close enough to touch. For a long moment, she simply looked at him—studying, assessing, weighing.
"Before we begin," she said quietly, "I need to know something. And I need you to answer honestly."
Dudian nodded.
"Your scar. The one over your heart." Her eyes didn't waver. "Do you know what it is?"
Dudian's hand moved instinctively to his chest. He'd almost forgotten about it, these past weeks of comfort and safety. But now, under her gaze, it seemed to pulse faintly.
"No," he admitted. "I've had it as long as I can remember. The other slum kids had scars too—everyone did. But theirs were from fights, accidents. Mine was... different. Cleaner."
"It's surgical," Lady Hathaway confirmed. "I had a healer examine you while you slept your first night. She confirmed what I suspected." She paused. "Your Origin Node was removed, Dudian. Deliberately. Professionally. When you were very young."
Dudian frowned. "Origin Node?"
"The organ that makes a mage a prodigy. One in ten thousand are born with it. It refines mana automatically, grants deeper reserves, faster casting, intuitive understanding." She watched him carefully. "Without it, you're... ordinary. Magically speaking."
Dudian processed this.
I'm broken. In this world, I'm literally missing the part that makes people special.
But even as the thought formed, another followed.
Wait. If everyone with a Node relies on it automatically... what happens to someone who has to understand magic manually? Someone who has to learn it like an engineer learns a system?
"I want to try anyway," he said.
Lady Hathaway raised an eyebrow. "You understand what I'm telling you? You'll never be a prodigy. Your ceiling is lower than those with Nodes. You'll have to work twice as hard for half the results."
"I understand." Dudian met her eyes. "I still want to try."
She studied him for a long moment. Then she smiled—that genuine smile, the one she saved just for him.
"Good answer. Now, let's begin."
The first exercise was simple: feel the mana.
"Magic is everywhere," Lady Hathaway explained. "In the air, in the ground, in living things. Close your eyes. Breathe. Try to sense it."
Dudian closed his eyes.
He breathed.
He felt... nothing.
Minutes passed. His legs grew numb from sitting. His mind wandered to the cookies he'd planned to bake this afternoon, to the twins' latest fort设计方案, to the ledgers Grimsby had shown him that revealed just how obscenely wealthy the Hathaway estate truly was.
Nothing. No magic. No special sensation.
Maybe I really am broken.
"Relax," Lady Hathaway's voice came softly. "You're trying too hard. It's like falling asleep—you can't force it. Just... be open."
Dudian breathed. Tried to empty his mind.
And then—
There.
It wasn't a feeling, exactly. More like an awareness. Like realizing the room had been humming all along, and you'd only just noticed. A gentle current, flowing through everything. Through him.
"I feel it," he whispered.
"Good. Now try to touch it. Just a little. Like reaching out with your mind."
Dudian reached.
The mana responded—but not like he expected. It didn't flow smoothly, the way Lady Hathaway had described. Instead, it seemed to... hesitate. Pool around him. Wait for instruction.
He pushed gently.
A spark flickered at his fingertip.
Dudian's eyes flew open. A tiny flame, no bigger than a candle's, danced on his skin. He stared at it, heart pounding.
I did it. I actually did it.
Then the flame died, and Dudian slumped forward, suddenly exhausted.
Lady Hathaway caught him before he hit the floor.
"Well," she said, her voice strange. "That's... unexpected."
Dudian blinked up at her, fighting to stay awake. "What? What's unexpected?"
"Your control." She was looking at him like she'd never seen him before. "You shaped mana on your first try. No Node, no training, and you produced a flame. That shouldn't be possible."
Dudian's foggy brain tried to process this. "Is that... good?"
"It's unprecedented." She helped him sit up, keeping a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Children with Nodes can usually produce a spark by their first lesson. Children without Nodes take weeks or months to achieve anything. You did it in minutes."
Dudian frowned. "But you said I'm broken. My ceiling is lower."
"Your ceiling, yes. But your control..." She shook her head slowly. "Dudian, when you reached for the mana, what did you feel?"
He tried to remember. "It was like... it was waiting. Like it didn't know what to do until I told it."
Lady Hathaway was quiet for a long moment.
"People with Nodes," she finally said, "don't feel that. The Node acts as an intermediary—it refines mana automatically, but it also imposes its own pattern. The mana flows through them. For you, the mana just... sits there. Waiting for instruction."
"Is that bad?"
"I don't know." For the first time since he'd met her, Lady Hathaway looked genuinely uncertain. "It might be useless. It might be dangerous. Or it might be..." She trailed off.
"Might be what?"
She met his eyes. "Might be something no one has seen in a very long time. True magical control, without a Node's interference. The way magic was supposedly used in the ancient world, before Nodes became common."
Dudian's exhaustion was fading, replaced by curiosity. "Ancient world?"
"Another lesson, another time." She helped him stand. "You've done enough for today. Rest. We'll try again tomorrow."
Dudian nodded, but his mind was racing.
No Node. No automatic refinement. But also no pattern imposed. Just me and the mana, and it waiting for instruction.
Like an engineer with a system. Like a programmer with raw code.
Maybe being broken isn't a disadvantage.
Maybe it's the opposite.
That afternoon, Dudian was supposed to rest.
Instead, he found himself in the kitchen, mechanically measuring flour while his brain churned through the morning's revelation.
Marta watched him with amusement. "Child, you've added salt three times. What's rattling around in that head of yours?"
Dudian looked down at the bowl. Three times? He'd definitely added salt three times.
"Sorry. Thinking."
"Clearly." Marta took the bowl from him and set it aside. "Sit. Talk. What happened this morning?"
Dudian hesitated. But Marta's expression was kind, and she'd already proven she could keep secrets—the twins had confirmed she'd never told anyone about their fort escapades.
"Lady Hathaway taught me magic," he said slowly. "I did it. I made a flame. But she said I shouldn't have been able to."
Marta raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't have been able to?"
"I don't have... something. An Origin Node. Most people need one to do magic easily. I don't have it."
Marta was quiet for a moment. Then she sat across from him, her usual bustling energy stilled.
"Dudian," she said gently, "do you know why I work here?"
The change of subject threw him. "Because you're a good cook?"
"I'm the best cook." She smiled briefly. "But that's not why Lady Hathaway hired me. She hired me because forty years ago, I was a kitchen girl in a noble house that mistreated its staff. Lady Hathaway visited, saw the bruises, and offered me a job on the spot. When my old masters objected, she... persuaded them."
Dudian waited.
"The point is," Marta continued, "Lady Hathaway doesn't collect people because they're useful. She collects them because they're interesting. Because they have something unique. You think not having this Node makes you broken? Child, I've watched you for one week. You notice things no one else does. You ask questions no one thinks to ask. You built a fort with structural integrity that impressed the estate's actual architect."
"He saw that?"
"He came to investigate the noise and stayed to take notes." Marta smiled. "You're not broken, Dudian. You're just different. And different, in this house, is a gift."
Dudian felt something warm in his chest.
"Thanks, Marta."
"Don't thank me. Thank me by fixing whatever you did to that dough." She stood, returning to business. "Three times the salt, child. We're making soup now."
Dudian laughed and followed her instruction.
But her words stayed with him.
Different is a gift.
Dinner that night was quiet. Lady Hathaway was absent—called away on business, Grimsby explained—so Dudian ate alone in his room, surrounded by books.
He'd asked for everything the estate had on Origin Nodes. The selection was... limited.
Most texts treated Nodes as natural, unquestioned, simply how magic worked. A few mentioned that surgical implantation was possible but dangerous. None mentioned removal.
Until the last book.
It was old—centuries old, by the look of the crumbling pages. Hidden at the bottom of a stack Grimsby had delivered without comment. The title, faded gold leaf, read:
"On the Limitation of Magical Potential: A Treatise Concerning the Origin Question"
Dudian opened it carefully.
The first page stopped him cold.
"It is the contention of this author that the so-called 'Origin Node' is not, as commonly believed, a gift of nature, but rather an artificial construct imposed upon humanity in ancient times. Evidence suggests that before the Node, all mages commanded magic through pure will and understanding—a practice lost to history. The Node, while granting ease of use, simultaneously imposes a ceiling upon potential. Those without Nodes, should they survive, may represent a return to an older, more dangerous form of magic..."
Dudian read the passage three times.
Artificial. Imposed. A ceiling.
Those without Nodes may represent a return to an older form of magic.
He closed the book slowly.
Outside his window, the sun was setting. Somewhere in the estate, the twins were probably plotting their next attack. Marta was preparing tomorrow's menus. Mira was watching from some shadow.
And Dudian sat alone with a book that suggested his "brokenness" might actually be the key to something ancient and powerful.
Who removed my Node?
Why?
And what else don't I know?
A whisper from the corner: "You should sleep."
Dudian didn't jump this time. "Mira. Did you know? About my Node?"
Silence. Then: "I knew you had a scar. I didn't know what it meant."
"But you know now?"
"I heard your lesson. I hear everything." A pause. "Lady Hathaway will tell you more when she's ready. Trust her."
Dudian looked toward the shadow. "Do you trust her?"
Longer silence. Then, so quietly he almost missed it: "With my life. With yours."
The shadow shifted, and Mira was gone.
Dudian sat in the darkness, holding the ancient book, feeling the faint pulse of his scar.
Trust her, Mira said.
He wanted to. He really did.
But trust was hard when you'd spent two lifetimes learning that safety was temporary.