Friction arrived before fire always did.
Stefan sensed it not through events, but through tone.
Emails grew shorter. Language became cautious. Invitations stopped asking if and started asking when. The network—quiet, disciplined, restrained—was no longer expanding, but it was no longer being ignored either.
That was the threshold.
At thirteen, Stefan understood thresholds better than most adults understood power. Thresholds were moments when systems could still reverse—but only with effort. Past them, inertia did the work.
And inertia, once aligned, was ruthless.
The first sign came from France.
Not officially.
Never officially.
A coordinator forwarded Stefan a policy draft circulating informally among junior advisors—language about "flexible sovereignty," "shared contingencies," and "temporary supranational mechanisms." The words were careful. The intent less so.
They were rehearsing.
Not commitment—justification.
Stefan read the document twice, then archived it without comment.
No response was a response.
At the Lyceum, tension surfaced in smaller ways.
A debate in class escalated faster than usual. Students who once deferred now pushed harder, testing edges. Not hostile—curious. Measuring.
After one seminar, Elena caught up with him in the corridor.
"You've been quiet," she said.
"I've been consistent," Stefan replied.
"That's not the same thing anymore," she said.
He stopped walking.
"People don't like uncertainty," Elena continued. "And right now, you're becoming part of it."
Stefan nodded. "That was inevitable."
She studied him. "So what now?"
"Now," he said, "I let friction exist without resolving it."
Elena frowned. "That sounds dangerous."
"It is," Stefan agreed. "But less dangerous than premature clarity."
At home, the adults noticed the same pattern.
Fabio spoke first. "You're being discussed as a variable now. Not an anomaly."
"That's worse," Gianluca said flatly.
"Yes," Stefan replied. "But also more honest."
Vittorio leaned back, hands folded. "Variables can be constrained."
"They can also reshape equations," Stefan said.
No one smiled.
Training shifted again.
Krüger introduced resistance—not physical, but cognitive. Commands given late. Instructions reversed mid-execution. Silence where feedback should have been.
"You're not training to act," Krüger said. "You're training to not react."
Stefan adapted quickly—but not easily.
Restraint demanded energy.
That night, Stefan reviewed Europe's macro indicators.
Nothing breaking.
Everything straining.
The illusion of stability held—but only because nothing had yet forced choice.
That was the danger of friction without fire.
It taught complacency.
In his previous life, he had seen what came next.
A small trigger.
An overreaction.
A chain response no one claimed responsibility for.
This time, he would not be the trigger.
But he would be ready when one arrived.
A message came in from Anika, brief and unencrypted.
People are aligning positions without realizing why.
This feels… unstable.
Stefan replied just as briefly.
Alignment without acknowledgment creates pressure.
Pressure reveals structure.
He closed the channel and stared at the map on his wall.
Europe looked peaceful.
That was the lie.
Friction was spreading—quietly, unevenly—through institutions that still believed time was on their side.
Stefan knew better.
Because friction without fire didn't mean safety.
It meant that when fire finally came, it would spread faster than anyone expected.
And Stefan Weiss—still thirteen, still officially irrelevant—was preparing not to ignite it…
…but to survive the moment when everyone else finally felt the heat.