Chapter 107: 107: The Academy Test XVII
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"What are you doing," Linnet asked, interested now.
"A stitch caught," Fartray said. "Nothing."
He took a breath to settle himself and felt heat bloom at his back hip. It was small and treacherous. The coat had touched his sash knot —cloth on cloth, like an old friend / enemy (Frinemy) sharing secrets.
The sash woke with it.
Fartray’s face did not move at first. But his mind did, very fast. He set his wine glass down without looking and turned toward the antechamber with the careful loose steps of a man pretending he is not walking away from a problem.
"Excuse me," he told the people in front of him.
He reached the corner table and set both hands on it as if he were deciding between two appetizers. He pressed his elbows to his ribs. Heat wrote its name under his coat, under the belt line, in letters he could feel.
"Do you smell—" said a girl in a lemon dress behind him, light voice sharpened by interest.
"Spilled lamp oil," supplied her friend, also wrong.
A valet noticed at last. He materialized beside Fartray like a quiet rule. "Sir," he said low. "If you would step into the west room. There is a small matter with—"
The coat gave up the fight.
Seam by seam, it remembered it was only thread. A soft burning sound married shame to noise. The shoulder split. The side split. The sash failed. The belt hook let go in despair. The most expensive trousers in Crescent Row learned about honesty from the knees up.
Silk lining tried to help and simply made the burn more dramatic.
The conversation in a ten tablet circle stopped in the mid sentence, the way birds still when a hawk passes over. The trio hit a wrong note and rescued it in the same heartbeat. Glass did not fall. No one screamed. Civilized people do not scream when cloth loses courage. They inhale in unison and communicate with eyebrows.
Fartray reached with both hands for everything at once. Coats do not go back on when they have decided not to. The sash slid away like a polite snake. The trouser front winked at the idea of modesty and decided it would not marry it.
Laughter came — one quick rude bubble from the lapis vest boy who did not know yet how to be cruel without being obvious. Sevrin’s mouth curved. Two older nobles did the kind thing and turned their heads. Lady Siris did the other kind thing and did not.
"Oh goddess," someone breathed. "He is—"
"Naked," said another.
"Underclothes?" asked a hopeful whisper.
"They lost," came the reply.
"Small ding dong," a third voice said, low and sharp. "Very small."
A violin squeaked. Fans snapped open like little traps. A waiter dropped one olive and watched it roll away like it knew a secret.
The room laughed in a ring. Not loud. The worst laughs are quiet.
"Call the gardener," someone hissed. "We need a fig leaf. A tiny one."
"Low tide in Aqua," a man murmured.
"The river dried up," said his friend.
"Do not stare," a chaperone warned, while staring.
"Fetch a magnifying glass," a girl said, eyes huge.
"Is that the travel size," another asked.
"Demo version," someone coughed into a glove.
"Blink and it’s gone," a boy whispered.
"Please don’t point," said a lady. "You’ll scare it."
"Return to sender," a clerk muttered.
"Inventory shrinkage," said a scribe, solemn as a judge.
"Climate change," sighed an aunt. "A drought."
"Thoughts and prayers," her sister added, fanning hard.
"New crest for Aqua," said a tailor. "Three drops... no, one."
"Count family," a wag said. "More like a discount on his man’s part."
"Be kind," said Lady Siris, fanning. "But also... oh dear."
"Quick," a young lord said, choking on a nut, "get a postage stamp. For modesty."
"The smallest sword in the capital," another offered.
"Thimble heir," Sevrin murmured, smiling like a knife.
Fartray burned red from ears to collarbone. He covered what he could and lurched for the west door. The valet did not laugh. He stared at the hinge. A cousin held up a coat like a shield.
The door shut. The room breathed. Then the voices came faster.
"Heat rune," someone guessed.
"No rune," said a gray aunt. "I would feel it."
"Sabotage," someone whispered.
"Laundry oil," another sniffed. "Fool’s mix."
"Street curse," Killian said softly. The word street did the work.
"Aqua needs flood relief," the lapis vest boy said, unable to stop. "We have river shrink."
"Enough," Lady Siris said without looking at him. "Have mercy."
"Mercy?" a cousin echoed, grinning. "On that? It needs a map."
"Or a label," the tailor said. "Some assembly required."
"Seal the rumor," an uncle muttered.
"Too late," a maid whispered behind her hand. "It’s already dancing."
Inside the antechamber, Fartray stood behind a screen with a towel and three kinds of fury. A house healer aged twenty-one, wearing a face that had not yet been paid to keep secrets at scale, inspected the remaining cloth without touching it.
"No spell mark," she said, puzzled and annoyed. "No runes. No mana. It looks like heat is living inside the thread."
"That is not a thing," Fartray said.
"Apparently," the healer said, "it is."
The steward arrived with a replacement set. It was an emergency garment, meant for spills and duels that went too far. He kept his eyes professional and his mouth neutral. "Sir," he said. "We will burn the rest behind the house. We will say a lamp fell. The story will not walk far if we set it to sleep now."
Fartray pulled the clean undershirt over a body that wished to be made of iron. His hands shook only once, when a cheap button caught.
"Before we sleep it," he said, voice flat and careful, "we will wake something else."
The steward lifted a brow.
"A boy with a hole in his hand," Fartray said. "And his orange spirit. They did this." He did not know it was true; he needed it to be.