Chapter 110: 110: The Academy Test XX
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Rusk stepped forward. He had narrow eyes and a clean jaw. He nodded once.
Edda stepped forward next. She was tall and strong in the shoulders. Her hands were scarred in the way of people who had trained to catch blades. She also nodded once.
The steward relaxed a hair. "Good."
"Where," the scarred man said.
"The Bent Penny," the steward said. "Cheap tavern in the south quarter. Yard with a shed and three chickens. Room three, second floor, two beds, one window. They checked in yesterday. They will be there until the exam."
"Tonight," the scarred man said. "After the second bell past midnight."
The steward looked at him for another beat. "Do not be seen," he said.
The scarred man did not shrug. "We never are."
The steward tipped his chin. "I don’t know if it’s true or not but I heard the boy has a friend at the temple. The story is..."
He paused and continued, "A priestess gave him an introduction letter," the steward said. "Not a shield. My guess is the temple Priestess saw his unique magic and recommended him to the heart magic academy. You don’t have to worry about that. The temple will not see him in the dark. If they ask tomorrow why he is missing, you will have delivered him already. We will deal with the aftermath."
"And the big houses," the scarred man asked, voice mild. "Do they want him touched."
"The house that pays you wants him delivered," the steward said. He did not add a name. He did not need to.
"Then we will deliver," the scarred man said. "We are professionals."
The steward stood. He did not offer his hand. "Do not harm the tavern woman," he said. "She is loud and will bring guards. Work from the yard. Work from the roof. The wall behind room three has a loose tile. Use that."
The scarred man’s eyes brightened a fraction. He liked it when a client brought useful detail instead of panic. "We will look," he said. "Go. We will do the rest."
The steward left the room, walked the short hall again, and stepped back into the light. The alley smelled like coal and cabbage. He buttoned his coat. He did not hurry going home. Hurrying is a kind of noise. He kept to quiet.
Behind him, the scarred man —his name was Brann— turned to his two people. "You heard," he said. "No killing. No loud tricks. We take them whole. We do not break a rule and pull the city on us."
Rusk scratched his chin. "A talking nonhuman spirit," he said. "Do we need a jar?"
"We bring a bell," Edda said. "A soft one. Spirits do not like the right kind of ring."
Brann nodded. "Bring nets," he said. "Bring the mesh with copper thread. Bring the sleeping oil for cloth. Bring the gag that does not choke. If the boy makes a circle, we cut it. If he pulls light, we keep our hands out of it and we use the net. If he sends a ball, we move left and low. If the spirit hums, we ring the bell."
Rusk grinned a little. "Sounds fun," he said.
Brann did not grin. "Fun is not the contract," he said. "Alive is the contract."
They set to work. Brann wrote quick notes and sent two runners to watch the tavern in daylight. Edda took a list and went to buy a length of new copper mesh from a stall under the bridge. Rusk checked their cuffs and their rope and the little vials that smelled like bad tea. Simple tools.
Work tools.
John did not know any of this.
He woke early in the Bent Penny, washed, ate bread and a bowl of hot grain with a little honey, and took out a pencil and paper. He set the token and the rules sheet where he could see them. He did not like to rush at the end. He liked to do small work early so big work would not shake.
He drew a short line and wrote, "Writing test." He looked at Fizz. "We do this now," he said.
Fizz lay on his back on the bed and stared at a crack in the plaster. "We do this now," he agreed, with the voice of a person about to make trouble because the morning felt too quiet. "You write. I sing a song about beans."
"You do not sing," John said.
Fizz turned his head. "A small song," he tried. "A song you can write to."
"No," John said. "You can hum if the hum is small."
Fizz hummed a very small hum. It could not hurt anyone. It still made the cat in the yard look up once.
John wrote what he thought the exam would ask. He wrote it in simple lines. He used words he liked. "Explain how to form a clean circle with chalk." "Name three rules about spirits." "Why you do not shout in a test room." He wrote answers. He crossed out. He tried again. He kept the breath steady and the hand steady.
Fizz hovered above the paper and read over his shoulder. "Do not shout," he said. "Rule four. Rule five. Rule all of them."
"Do not distract me," John said without heat.
Fizz sighed and flopped on the bed again. "I am bored," he said. "I am so bored I will turn into a furry rug."
"You cannot turn into a rug," John said. "You would be a poor rug. People would trip. You would make speeches about feet."
Fizz rolled to his side and made a quiet trumpet sound. "True," he said. "I would roast heels."
John chewed his pencil, then stopped because the tavern woman would scold him for biting wood in her room. He wrote a clean answer about mana flow and a short line about why chalk matters even if you are strong. He drew a small diagram: a circle, a safe zone, a place where a breath goes wrong.