The library had become a second home.
It wasn't intentional. Edward didn't wake each morning and say, I'll go again today. It just kept happening. His feet found their way to the same cobbled street, to the warped wooden door, to the quiet.
By now, Mira didn't look up when he entered. She merely glanced once, then went back to writing in her ledgers or reorganizing books with that uncanny ability she had to move without sound. He liked that she didn't ask questions. He liked that she didn't hover.
It gave him room to think.
The model had grown. Not by size, but by refinement. Each part that failed was stripped and replaced. A snapped spar became a carved sliver of ashwood. A crooked wing joint was remeasured, recut, redone. He'd stopped counting the days since that first paper flight. It didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was that each new attempt glided a little farther. Fell a little slower. Bent a little less.
Failure, when it came, felt less like an end. More like... feedback.
---
One afternoon, he found Mira re-shelving a stack of journals near the back of the library, her sleeves rolled up past the elbow, dark hair tied back with a fraying ribbon.
He hesitated.
"Do you ever wonder how far something like this could actually go?" he asked.
She didn't turn.
"What—your glider?"
"Yeah. I mean, not just a few feet. But high. Far. Like... crossing the valley. Or flying along the cliffs."
Mira slid a book into place.
"No."
Edward blinked. "No?"
"I don't wonder. I calculate." She turned then, brushing her hands off. "Wondering is when you don't know the rules. I look for the rules first."
Edward grinned, scratching the back of his neck. "I guess I'm more the wondering type."
She gave a small shrug. "Then we're opposites."
That thought stayed with him longer than he expected.
---
The next morning, Elsie caught him slipping out of the house with a bundle of reed and thread under his coat.
"You keep disappearing," she said, falling into step beside him.
"I'm just working on something."
"That something wouldn't be a flying stick again, would it?"
Edward groaned. "It's not a stick."
"Well, the last one looked like a stick."
He gave her a sideways glance. "You don't have to come."
"I'm not coming," she said. "I'm escorting. That's different."
They passed through the market square, then down toward the edge of the village. Edward hadn't shown anyone the new model yet. Not even Elsie. It felt... fragile. Not just physically, but in the way ideas sometimes were—too new to share, too soft to survive being misunderstood.
She kept walking beside him anyway.
---
When they reached the bell hill, he retrieved the latest model from beneath a sheet of canvas. Elsie raised an eyebrow.
"It's tiny."
"It's a model," Edward said defensively. "For testing angles and balance."
She crouched beside it, poked one of the wings. "Looks better than last time."
"That's because I stopped trying to copy birds."
Elsie blinked. "You what?"
"I used to think the answer was in flapping. Wings like hawks, feathers and all that." He shook his head. "But birds flap to stay in the air. Gliders don't. They just need to catch it. Ride it."
"Like sails," she murmured.
"Exactly."
She stood. "So, fly it."
Edward adjusted the wings, checked the folded spar, then waited for the right breeze. When it came, he crouched and released.
The model dipped, then curved upward gently. Not high, not far. But enough.
Enough to make him smile again.
Elsie crossed her arms. "Still looks like a flying stick to me."
But she was smiling too.
---
Later that day, he returned to the library and found Mira at her desk, scribbling in that precise, almost mechanical handwriting of hers. He approached with the model tucked under his arm.
"Wind was steady today," he said.
She looked up.
"I folded the front spar," he added. "Like you said."
She nodded.
"It worked."
"I know."
He blinked. "You do?"
"I heard you laugh from the bell hill."
Edward chuckled. "You have good ears."
"I listen well," Mira said simply.
There was a long pause, the kind that should've been awkward, but wasn't.
Then she said, "You're not really trying to fly, are you?"
Edward blinked. "I... what do you mean?"
"You're chasing a glide. Not a flight."
He frowned, unsettled. Not by the truth of it—but by how easily she'd named what he hadn't yet admitted to himself.
"I'm not sure there's a difference," he said, though weakly.
"There is." She returned to her writing. "But I think you'll figure it out when you're ready."
He watched her for a moment. Then sat down, pulling out his notebook. His sketches had grown denser lately—less dreamy, more precise. The fantasy was still there, but hidden beneath math and margin notes.
He wasn't ready to give up the dream of flight.
But maybe he could take smaller steps.
---
At home, his father had begun to notice the late afternoons.
"You're working on something," he said one night as they sat at the table, the stew cooling between them.
Edward hesitated. "A model."
"Another one?"
"A better one."
His father scratched his beard. "You're not going to jump off the roof again, are you?"
"No. Just hills now."
The old man grunted. "Good. You land softer in grass."
But then, softer, he added, "Keep at it. You're thinking more than you used to. That's something."
Edward didn't know how to respond to that. So he didn't. Just nodded and went back to his stew.
---
By the end of the week, he had added curved ribs beneath the wings. The paper caught wind more cleanly. It drifted longer now, even on low hills. It wasn't flying. Not yet.
But it felt like it wanted to.
And that—more than anything—kept him going.