Hugo sentience

“He’s doing things on his own?” Kendra asked.

“Little things,” Coulter said. “He's still totally obedient. He completes all his chores. But one day your grandmother spotted him putting a baby bird back into its nest. Nobody had issued a command; he was simply being kind.”

“You're saying the fairies did something to him!” Kendra said. “After Muriel destroyed Hugo with a spell, they rebuilt him, but they must have changed him.”

“Near as we can tell, they made him a true golem,” Coulter said. “Manufactured golems, the mindless puppets who exist only to obey orders, were originally created in imitation of true golems, actual living creatures of stone or mud or sand. True golems long ago passed out of all human knowledge. But apparently Hugo is now one. He is developing a will.”

Chapter 8