The first few days were strange.
Rem—for that was what everyone called him, and he decided that was what he would be called from now on—spent most of his time in bed, observing. Not because he was weak, though his body was still complaining about the fever. He simply needed to understand where he was before doing anything.
The room was small. A wooden bed with a straw mattress covered by a thick sheet, a table with a pitcher of water, and a stool pressed against the wall. The window had no glass—only a wooden shutter that Elara opened in the morning to let in the air and closed at night when the cold descended. The floor was packed earth, firm and carefully swept.
It was a poor house. Roberto knew how to recognize poverty—he had lived with it all his life, even when he pretended otherwise.
But it was a clean house. Well cared for. Every object was in its proper place, and the bedsheet smelled of handmade soap. Elara wiped the floor with a damp cloth every morning, and Aldric fixed anything that creaked or wobbled before anyone had to ask. There was pride in that house. The kind of pride that didn't need money—only people who cared.
On the third morning, Rem managed to stand up on his own.
Elara nearly had a heart attack when she saw him standing in the middle of the room, looking out the window with his hands braced on the sill.
"Rem! Get back in bed right now!"
"I'm fine, Mom." The word still sounded strange in his mouth. Not the word itself—the language of this world came naturally to him, as if it had always been his. What felt strange was the weight of it. Mom. He hadn't called anyone that in years.
Elara crossed her arms, but her eyes betrayed her relief. "Fine is something I decide you are. And I'm the one who decides."
Rem almost smiled. Almost.
Outside the window, the world stretched out in a way Roberto had never seen. There were no buildings, no asphalt, no constant hum of cars and motorcycles that made up the background noise of São Paulo. Instead, there were fields. Green fields stretching all the way to a line of trees on the horizon, crossed by a dirt road that rose gently toward a hill where a stone stronghold stood—not a castle, but something between a large mansion and a small fortress. It had low towers at the corners and a wall that looked more decorative than defensive.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing.
Elara came closer and looked out the window as if she'd seen it a thousand times before. "The masters' house. The Aldren Estate."
The Aldren Estate. The counts. His parents' employers.
Rem stored the information away in silence.
Over the next few days, he pieced things together. He listened to Aldric and Elara's conversations during meals—a thin broth with dark bread that, to his surprise, tasted good. He listened to the neighbors who passed by the door and asked about the boy's health. He listened to the sound of the wind in the fields and the distant lowing of animals whose names he still didn't know.
And he heard about magic.
Aldric was the first to mention it, one night when he thought Rem was already asleep.
"Do you think the fever affected his magical ability?"
"Don't say that." Elara's voice was low and firm. "He hadn't even manifested it yet. It might take time."
"I know. I'm just worried."
"So am I. But he woke up, Aldric. He woke up. We'll deal with the rest."
Magical abilities. Everyone in this world was born with one. Rem came to understand that little by little—from conversations, offhand comments, and the way people talked about their abilities the way they talked about their own names. It was part of who they were. One neighbor had the magical ability to harden leather with his touch. A woman who brought Elara herbs could sense where water flowed beneath the ground. Small, practical things that defined each person's place.
And Rem? Rem still didn't know what he had. Or rather—Roberto knew something had changed in him, because sometimes, when he looked at an object and thought about it hard enough, he felt tingling in his fingers. As if something were there, waiting. But he didn't force it. Not yet.
First, he needed to understand the board. Then he would play.
The meeting took place on the seventh day.
Rem was sitting on the doorstep, peeling potatoes for Elara—or something that looked like potatoes, with purpler skins and pale-yellow insides—when he heard footsteps on the dirt road. Quick, light steps, accompanied by a high-pitched voice that wouldn't stop talking.
"I told you he'd already woken up! Mrs. Maren told Mom that Elara's son was already on his feet, and I want to see him!"
"Celine, wait."
"I don't want to wait!"
A girl appeared around the bend in the road. Her blond hair was tied into two short braids, and she had rosy cheeks and eyes such a light blue they looked like they were made of sky. She wore a simple dress for a noble girl—but even so, it was better than any clothes Rem had seen on the neighbors. She looked about six years old and moved as if the whole world were a playground made just for her.
Behind her, walking more slowly and wearing an expression that mixed patience with irritation, came an older boy. Dark brown hair, shoulders already broad for his age, and a serious look that didn't fit the nine years he appeared to be. A wooden sword was strapped to his back with a leather band, as if carrying it were the most natural thing in the world.
Edgar and Celine Aldren. The counts' children.
Celine stopped three steps from Rem and stared at him with the intensity of someone examining a rare insect.
"Are you Rem?"
"I am."
"Did you almost die?"
"Celine!" Edgar arrived behind her and put a hand on his sister's shoulder. "You don't ask someone that."
"Why not? It's true. Everyone said he almost died. I wanted to know what it's like."
Rem looked at her. Then he looked at Edgar, who seemed genuinely embarrassed. And for the first time since waking up in that world, Rem felt something he hadn't expected.
The urge to laugh.
"It's strange," he said, returning to peeling the purple potato. "You close your eyes, and when you open them, you're somewhere else."
Celine's eyes widened. "Really? Where?"
"Here."
The girl fell silent for two whole seconds—which was probably a record—and then broke into a huge smile.
"Then I'm glad you came here!"
Edgar didn't smile, but Rem noticed his shoulders relax a little. The boy looked at the potatoes, then at Rem, and said in a carefully neutral voice:
"Do you need help with that?"
Rem held up a purple potato. "You know how to peel one?"
"I know how to use a sword. A potato can't be harder."
"You'd be surprised."
Edgar sat beside him. Celine sat on the other side, swinging her legs and asking questions about everything—why the potatoes were purple, why the sky was so blue, why Rem peeled them so slowly, whether he liked cats, whether he'd ever seen a dragon.
Rem answered what he could. He made up what he couldn't. And there, sitting on the doorstep of a packed-earth house, peeling potatoes with the son and daughter of counts, he felt something Roberto had never felt in his twenty-five years in São Paulo.
That maybe, just maybe, he was in the right place.