Theo learned very quickly that wanting to bake and being allowed to bake were not the same thing.
It wasn't explained to him in one conversation. There was no moment where someone knelt down and said, This is how things are now. Instead, he learned it the way children often learned uncomfortable truths…through repetition, tone, and what people stopped letting him touch.
By the time he was seven, House Oaten had settled into a quieter version of itself.
Not silence. Never silence. The mansion still creaked at night, still sighed when the wind pressed against its windows, still carried voices down long hallways when people forgot to lower them in time. But there was a carefulness to everything now. A restraint that hadn't been there before.
Footsteps crossed the halls less often. Doors that once stood open stayed shut unless needed. Rooms were cleaned on rotation instead of daily. Candles were burned until the wick drowned itself in wax. When a chair leg cracked, it was mended instead of replaced.
Nothing here was wasted anymore.
Theo noticed because he had learned how to notice.
He moved through the mansion slowly, his pace unhurried, fingers trailing along the walls as he walked. Wallpaper peeled in places where moisture had crept in years ago. Beneath it, darkened wood showed through, rough and uneven under his touch. The house felt tired…not broken, not dying, just… enduring.
Like it was standing because it had to, not because it was built to.
The people inside were much the same.
Old Bren still worked the ledgers in the study, his spine bent and his eyes sharper than anyone gave him credit for. His hands shook every now and then when he turned pages, but the numbers somehow always came out right. Theo would watch him sometimes from the doorway, memorizing the careful way Old Bren would lick his finger before flipping each sheet, as if even the paper needed coaxing.
Two servants left during the winter.
They did it quietly. No arguments, no dramatic goodbyes. Just packed trunks, bowed heads, and apologies that sounded rehearsed. Theo overheard one of them promise to return once things improved.
But…they never did.
while others stayed, it wasn't out of loyalty. Loyalty implied choice. Most of them stayed out of necessity, because House Oaten was familiar, because leaving cost money, because the town beyond the gates offered fewer certainties than the slow decline they already understood and became accustomed to.
Theo would watch them all, even though at his age he wasn't supposed to.
Lyra caught him lingering once near the solar, where voices drifted through the cracked door.
"The merchants won't extend credit again—"
"If the grain shipments fail—"
"Taxes alone won't—"
She took his hand gently and pulled him away.
"Leave that to adults," she said, voice firm but tired.
Theo nodded and went where she guided him.
He listened anyway.
The kitchen remained the warmest place in the house.
It wasn't lively anymore. Not like it had been when Theo was smaller, when laughter had bounced off the stone walls and the air had been thick with steam and chatter. But it breathed. Warmth lived there, stubborn and comforting, wrapped around the low hum of the ovens.
Theo spent as much time there as he was allowed.
Sometimes he stood in the doorway, pretending he'd been sent on an errand. Other times he perched on an overturned crate, legs swinging slightly as he watched Master Hollis work. The cook had aged noticeably in the last few years. His shoulders sloped more. His hair, once dark, had gone iron-gray at the temples.
His movements, however, were precise.
Nothing was wasted in Hollis's kitchen. Flour was measured twice. Water poured slowly. Scraps were scraped into bowls instead of thrown away. Even time was rationed—tasks overlapped, pauses eliminated.
Theo watched the dough more than anything else.
It fascinated him.
Under Hollis's hands, it shifted and stretched, resistant one moment, yielding the next. It looked alive in a way Theo couldn't quite name. Sometimes it clung stubbornly to the table. Sometimes it tore too easily. Sometimes it behaved exactly as expected, which seemed rare enough to be worth appreciating.
Theo's fingers itched whenever he watched.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
A strange tingling crawled beneath his skin, strongest in his palms, as if his hands remembered something his mind didn't. He flexed them often, rubbing thumb against forefinger, pressing his nails lightly into his skin to make the sensation fade.
Once—just once—he reached out.
It wasn't a grab. Just a small, unconscious movement, fingers extending toward the dough as Hollis turned away to check the oven.
A hand closed around his wrist.
Not tight. Not angry.
"No," Hollis said.
Theo froze. Heat rushed to his face. He nodded immediately and pulled back, heart thudding harder than the moment warranted.
He hadn't meant to. He hadn't planned it. He didn't argue.
"You're too young," Hollis added after a moment. His voice softened. "And this house can't afford mistakes."
That part stayed with Theo long after the words themselves faded.
He stopped trying after that.
Instead, he helped where he was allowed.
He carried firewood from the shed to the kitchen, arms burning by the third trip. He wiped counters with cold water that numbed his fingers and left his sleeves damp. He swept flour from the floor carefully, collecting it instead of scattering it.
He counted loaves before they were sliced.
That task taught him more than anyone intended.
He learned how thin bread could be cut before people noticed. How many slices could come from a single loaf without complaint. How the end pieces were always set aside for later.
The loaves were smaller now.
Theo remembered when they hadn't been, though he couldn't place exactly when that had changed. He remembered plates being passed twice at meals. Remembered laughter lingering after dinner instead of everyone leaving quickly.
Once, he asked Lyra where the long tables had gone.
She paused, fingers tightening briefly around the edge of the serving tray.
"They were too much work to keep," she said after a moment.
She didn't meet his eyes.
At night, Theo dreamed of another kitchen.
It didn't belong to this house.
The counters were lower. The oven, warmer, gentler somehow. Hands guided his…not large, not rough, just steady. A voice hummed softly, never rushed, never disappointed.
When he woke, his hands tingled.
By eight, hunger had a shape.
It wasn't the sharp ache in his stomach—that came and went. Hunger sounded like adults lowering their voices when he entered a room. It looked like empty chairs at meals, spaces where people used to sit. It tasted like bread without butter, soup without meat, stews stretched thin with water.
Festivals disappeared from conversation entirely.
Not canceled. Just… unmentioned.
"Next year," people said when he asked.
Theo stopped believing them.
Instead, he observed.
He noticed how Hollis adjusted recipes without writing anything down. How Bren's ledgers grew thicker even as the pantry grew thinner. How his father's shoulders seemed permanently tense, as if bracing against an invisible weight.
Theo began to collect things.
Scraps of parchment discarded from the study. Bits of charcoal snapped from larger sticks. He hid them beneath his mattress and behind loose stones in the wall. At night, by candlelight, he drew ovens and tables and hands.
He wrote numbers he didn't fully understand. Ratios and counts he would hear.
Theo would make marks that meant longer or shorter to him, even if he couldn't explain how they would impact his baking yet. He took notes about smells that were sweet, sour, sharp. About timing and how bread seemed to crack differently in winter than summer.
He never baked.
Partially due to no one allowed him, but also because he didn't trust his hands.
They felt too small. Too weak. Like they would fail the moment he tried and from what he had learned over time the house couldn't afford his mistakes.
That fear grew quietly, alongside his curiosity.
On his ninth birthday, Theo stood in the kitchen doorway again.
He was taller now. Thinner. The sleeves of his clothes always seemed just a little too short. The mansion around him felt even larger by comparison, its empty spaces harder to ignore.
Hollis noticed him immediately.
"You're getting older," the cook said, wiping his hands on his apron.
Theo nodded. "I know."
Hollis studied him for a long moment, gaze lingering on Theo's hands.
"Another year," he said finally. " …and If your father agrees."
Theo swallowed.
"Another year," he repeated.
Later that night, Theo lay awake, listening to the house creak and settle around him.
His hands itched beneath the blanket.
The mansion was starving, and while Theo had learned to wait he was itching to do something about it.