Link padded down the twisting hallway towards Gan's room, careful to avoid the squeaky floorboard where the stairs began. There were only six steps, but they were both deep and tall, to suit their owner. Corfo had taken Link aside two years ago, after Gan's last growth season, which ended with him teasing Ensren about not being the biggest anymore. They'd walked all the way to the east pasture, talking about nothing, until nearly twilight.

Then Corfo asked how tall his son was likely to get.

Link told him. What else could he do?

They called on Ensren and his wife at neighboring farm on the way back. They started digging for the foundation posts of the new wing the very next day.

Gan loved his birthday present that year, even though it wasn't a surprise at all, and he'd even been conscripted to help carry and set joists and beams. Ma Idrea teased him, pretending to complain about the boys turning her house into a castle, but it was her idea to make the addition round, with a flat roof for Gan's looking-glass. And she did sew the banners, though it was Lamis' idea to paint them.

At fifteen, Gan still loved playing pretend with Taedra and Link, and Ensren's twins, though these days he wore mostly black 'just in case' he needed to be their wicked sorcerer or captive prince. And they loved it - even bringing their friends into the game on holidays. Roan liked to pretend he was too grown-up for games, but nobody ever believed him. He was usually the strategist behind the twins' pranks anyway.

Link didn't like those games much anymore.

Gan's door was open - he was in a good mood today, then. Link held his breath as he snuck through the door, careful not to jostle his burden too much. It wasn't much of a gift, but he couldn't let the day roll past without giving him something.

"It's a good thing you weren't born a thief," Gan rumbled without looking up from his books. His voice had started dropping last winter, and he took every advantage of the fact.

"You're no fun," said Link, circling around the latest experiment taking up half the room to reach Gan's desk. Gan had his hair up in a high horsetail today, tied with wide mustard-gold and sky-blue ribbon exactly matching the garish floral print of his lace-edged neckcloth and the lining of his vest. At least the fashionable half-cloak draped over the back of his chair was solid blue wool on one side and gold silk on the other.

Lamis would approve. She'd probably even bring him a nosegay of cornflowers to match.

Gan laughed, tipping back his enormous horseapple wood chair onto two legs as he set his pen back in the inkpot. "I'm plenty of fun. Ask anyone. What'd you find?"

Link bit his lip, and set the delicate wire cage on the desk. The dayfly caught inside fluttered, spiraling up to the top of its cage, and floating back down to rest on the clump of spiderwort Link had dug up for it.

Gan stared at it for a long moment, golden eyes unreadable. "How?"

Link shrugged, nodding toward the ant empire Gan kept on the shelf by his massive bed. "Same as always. My net has magic."

Gan snorted, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "It doesn't, but maybe you do. I have something for you too, Link."

Link frowned up at him. "It's your birthday."

"Which means I'm king today, and you have to do what I say. It's the rules. So bring your stool over so I can show you."

Link stood on tiptoe to see what Gan had been working on. Like his notes on the vast pinboard hung between the arched windows, the book on Gan's desk was full of elaborate charts and tiny letters. This one was in Hylian - but when he turned the page, the very next drawing was an elaborate mechanism he knew too well. He ran his fingers over the ink, but the toothed gears remained.

"That's just a new kind of lock, nothing very interesting," said Gan, dropping his chair back to the floor with a resounding thump. "Go on, get your stool."

He was impossible when he was excited about something.

Link trudged across the room for his tall chair - Lamis made it for him, sized exactly right so he could sit just as high as Gan whenever he wanted. Of course, being Lamis, she had to paint it. At least he'd managed to persuade her not to make it look like a tree, even if it would be funny.

Gan set the dayfly cage safely against the wall, with just the edge of it in the afternoon sunlight, admiring its beauty while Link got settled.

"Did you talk to Da about next week?"

"Yeah," said Link. "Taedra will do my chores as long as I bring back a honeycomb for her, and Ensren will do yours if you promise to help with the pumpkins, and the squash bugs."

"Good," said Gan, flipping his book closed and shuffling his papers off to the far corner with a grin. "I hid a jar of honey in the jewel box last time the Beedle came through, so we don't have to go through town at all."

Link frowned. "But I thought you wanted to see the fort-"

"Sure, but I found something even better," he said, prying up the lid of his desk, careful not to disturb the dayfly as he retrieved a single sheet of parchment. "There's an old shrine just three days' ride south of here. Everyone forgot about it when the river moved ages ago, but a caravan got lost in those woods a few years ago, and they saw the old gate-posts."

Link peered at the map - a faded thing, but nobody who knew the province could mistake it. Hundreds of little farms were carefully marked out in brown ink, mountains in a black that had gone purple wherever there was water damage. At the very south edge, new marks in chalk showed a winding path over wooded hills, and Gan's careful hand noting which journal went with the map.

"What's it for?"

Gan shrugged. "Probably somebody's ancestor. But maybe we'll be lucky, and it will be a hill-spirit, or a forest spirit, or maybe even a fairy."

Link smiled. "That would be nice."

Gan rolled his eyes, and prodded Link's shoulder. "It would be more than nice, and you know it. Is lunch ready yet?"

"Breakfast was only two hours ago," said Link, pretending to be exasperated like Idrea.

Gan was immune. "So?"

Link laughed, hopping down from his stool. "You have to pretend you're surprised."

Gan whooped, catching up the dayfly cage as he stood. "Come on then, let's take this little queen to her new castle."