Six months after the Order's fall, I received an invitation to a wedding.
It was from Mira Starwind, the young woman whose grandmother's music box I had repaired. She was getting married, she wrote, to a young man from her village, and she wanted me to be there. The music box would be played at the ceremony, she said. Her grandmother's lullaby, welcoming a new chapter of their family's story.
I attended the wedding, a small affair in a village just outside Ashborne's walls. The ceremony was held in a garden blooming with enchanted flowers, their petals shifting colors in time with the music that filled the air. And when the moment came, Mira produced the music box—its wood gleaming, its crystal whole—and opened it.
The lullaby drifted through the garden, soft and sweet and slightly haunting. I watched as Mira closed her eyes, letting the music wash over her, and I saw the tears that gathered at the corners of her smile. Her grandmother's song, preserved and restored, marking the beginning of a new family's life together.
After the ceremony, Mira found me among the guests. She was radiant in her wedding dress, her new husband's hand clasped in hers.
"I wanted to thank you again," she said. "For the music box. For everything."
"It was my pleasure," I said, and meant it.
"The song... it made me think about what matters," Mira continued. "About family, and history, and the things we pass down. I want to build something lasting. Something my grandmother would be proud of."
"From what I've seen, she already would be."
Mira smiled, squeezed my hand, and returned to her celebration.
I stayed for a while longer, watching the enchanted flowers dance and listening to the music that filled the air. Ordinary magic, I thought. The kind that made life a little brighter, a little easier, a little more beautiful. The kind that didn't need to be stolen or hoarded because it was already freely given.
When I left the wedding, I walked back toward Ashborne through the fading afternoon light. The city's towers rose in the distance, their spires catching the last rays of the sun. Somewhere within those walls, my shop was waiting, its shelves filled with broken things that needed fixing.
I thought about the Order of the Consuming Serpent, about Aldricus Vol and his dream of reshaping the world. He had seen magic as something to be controlled, directed, concentrated in the hands of those who "deserved" it. But he had been wrong.
Magic was everywhere. In the music boxes that played lullabies, in the brooms that swept floors, in the lamps that lit themselves at dusk. In the stories people told and the objects they cherished and the connections they forged across generations. It wasn't something to be hoarded or stolen—it was something to be shared, tended, preserved.
That was what I did. That was what I would keep doing, as long as I was able.
The road stretched before me, leading home. The sun sank below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold. And somewhere behind me, in a garden filled with enchanted flowers, a music box played a grandmother's lullaby, welcoming the future with a song from the past.
This was daily life in a world of magic. Not the grand gestures, the epic battles, the destinies fulfilled. Just ordinary people living ordinary lives, their small dramas and quiet joys illuminated by the magic that ran through everything like a river.
I walked home in the gathering darkness, at peace with my place in that world.
A repairer of broken things. A restorer of lost meaning. A keeper of stories.
One lullaby at a time.