There’s a moment every morning where I dare to hope.

  The garage door rattles open. Sunlight spills in. Maybe today—just maybe—someone will notice the faint shimmer of sentience in the corner. Maybe today, I’ll finally be acknowledged as more than glorified storage.

  And then Sparks sets something on fire.

  Again.

  “Okay, hear me out,” she shouted this time, barreling into the shop holding what appeared to be a toaster duct-taped to a fire gem. “It’s not a bomb. It’s a preemptive flame stabilizer.”

  It exploded two seconds later.

  The cursed mop bucket wailed in the background as flaming toast ricocheted off the walls.

  Grenda didn’t even look up from her paperwork. “You’re on cleanup.”

  Sparks patted her smoking robes. “Fair.”

  They’d given her a bright orange vest that said “TRAINEE - FLAMMABLE” on the back in runes. It did nothing.

  From my spot on the workbench, I watched Sparks approach with soot on her cheeks and optimism in her eyes—the most dangerous combination in the known world.

  “Hey Boxy,” she said, crouching beside me. “Did you throw that ratchet at me yesterday? Because if so… awesome.”

  I tried to shift a washer at her in response. It twitched. She squealed in delight.

  Grenda, of course, was not impressed. “Sparks. Focus.”

  “I am focused!” Sparks insisted, snapping to attention. “I’ve got my fire permit, a new idea for smokeless oil, and an experimental rune that repels combustion.”

  “It’s on fire,” Grenda said.

  “…It is,” Sparks admitted, stomping it out. “Still early.”

  Then Bleatford the goat trotted in with his tiny glasses, clipboard balanced on one horn.

  “The intern has failed her safety exam again,” he said in his eternal deadpan. “Third time this week.”

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  “I wrote my answers in flames,” Sparks explained. “It’s called commitment.”

  “She tried to barbecue the scantron,” Bleatford added.

  I swear, the goat’s eyes briefly locked with mine. We shared a moment of mutual despair.

  “New rule,” Grenda announced, standing up and stretching her arms. “Sparks is now on fire probation. She can’t use any flame-based magic in the shop until she passes Basic Enchanted Fire Containment.”

  “That’s discrimination against my entire aesthetic,” Sparks muttered.

  “Take it up with HR,” Grenda said, jerking a thumb at the goat.

  Bleatford cleared his throat. “HR rejects your grievance.”

  Sparks crossed her arms. “You didn’t even read it.”

  “It burst into flames.”

  “Artistic intent!”

  Fire probation, it turns out, made Sparks significantly more dangerous.

  Unable to directly combust anything, she resorted to passive fire-adjacent mischief. She enchanted the toaster again, only this time it made ice cubes. She spilled mana-infused coffee onto the spellbook shelf, summoning a creature made entirely of cursed post-it notes. And she tried to “upgrade” Grenda’s wrench set with animated handles.

  They unionized within an hour.

  Meanwhile, I was getting stronger.

  Not in the bench-press-a-dragon sense. But I could now eject small items from my drawers with decent accuracy. I’d spent the afternoon discreetly pelting Sparks with washers, then pretending to be innocent inanimate metal.

  “Boxy’s got attitude,” she whispered one day. “I respect that.”

  She even started naming my contents. The pliers were “Bitey.” The hex keys were “the Skeletons.” The socket set was “The Boys.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. On one hand: demeaning. On the other: kind of cozy.

  At one point, she whispered conspiratorially, “If you ever want to go rogue and take over the shop, just blink twice.”

  I don’t have eyes.

  She nodded solemnly. “Got it. Stealth mode.”

  The next customer was a gnome mage in a lab coat with five different goggles stacked on his forehead. He wheeled in a lawnmower-sized contraption that emitted high-pitched giggling and periodically spat coins.

  “This,” he said, “is a Coin Gremlin. I accidentally cross-bred it with my espresso machine.”

  The machine squealed, belched caffeine vapor, and started vibrating ominously.

  “It’s been very productive,” he added.

  Grenda sighed. “Put it on the lift.”

  Sparks was tasked with stabilizing the containment runes—without fire. She used bubblegum. It did not work. The gremlin escaped, flung coins everywhere, and bit Bleatford on the tail.

  In the confusion, I managed to launch a small clamp across the room and trigger the emergency shutoff. The gremlin collapsed in a frothing heap.

  The gnome clapped. “Fascinating! Did that come from the toolbox?”

  Grenda blinked. “Nah. That thing’s just decorative.”

  Internally, I swore a solemn vow: one day, I would open my own damn lid and dramatically reveal my true self. With glowing gears. And maybe fog.

  Lots of fog.

  That evening, Sparks sat beside me with a bandaged hand and a half-eaten muffin.

  “You’re a good listener,” she said, gently tapping my side. “Better than Bleatford. He just tells me to ‘grow emotionally’ and ‘use less napalm.’”

  I let a bolt roll forward in response. She smiled.

  “You get me, Boxy.”

  I do. Gods help us both, I do.