Chapter 112: 112: The Academy Test XXII
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The city has a way of watching everyone without eyes. News about John’s void magic had drifted to the city and the nobles by noon (earlier than day). Even to places John would never visit. Runners whispered. Boys with fast feet traded details for cents. A porter near the academy took coins to remember faces and more coins to forget them. A small, sharp eared woman by the baker’s corner said, "Room three," and the words walked to Brann before sundown.
Brann worked the way he always worked. First, he listened. He sent Rusk to the academy gate to ask a boy about a plain coat and an orange glow. He sent Edda to speak to a food seller near the square. The food seller saw everything because everyone stopped for food and water. Edda learned the name "John," the word "village," and the fact that a priestess had given him a letter properly. She also learned the funny bit boys repeated wrong: "He has a black ball in his hand." She did not laugh. She filed it.
Rusk watched the tavern from a distance. He learned about the yard, the gate, the cat, and Pim’s habit of peeking out before he went to bed. He watched the candles in the windows and counted the people who went up and the people who came down. He saw John’s plain face once in the dusk and thought, This will be easy work. He did not say it out loud. Saying it out loud is how work goes wrong.
By late evening, Brann had the shape of the target. He met Rusk and Edda in a small yard behind a shuttered butcher. He drew a square in the dirt with a stick. "Front door," he said. He tapped one side. "Bad. Loud. We go from the yard." He tapped the other side. "The gate is locked. The chain is new. We go over."
He tapped the top of the square. "Roof. Tiles look old. There is always a loose one. Edda, you find it. Rusk, you watch the corner. If a drunk comes, you turn him away."
"Inside," he went on, drawing two lines. "Hall. Room three on the right. Two beds. One window. One chair. One table. The boy might sleep lightly. Spirit sleeps wrong. We use the soft bell at the door crack. One ring. Two. If the spirit hums, we ring again. Then we push the cloth under the door. The cloth has the sleep oil. It is not a fog. It is not a poison. It is only heavy and makes people slow.
"After a count of fifty, we go in. Rusk on the spirit catching. That will fetch us some money if we sell it to the Dark market. Edda on the boy’s hands. I hold the net. If he makes a move, I cut it. If he makes a black ball, I roll the net left and throw it low. You do not stand and stare if you see a new trick. You move and do your old ones faster."
Rusk nodded. He liked simple plans. "What if the woman comes up," he said.
"The tavern woman," Brann said. "She will not. She is fat. Fat women sleep heavily. The son might wake. He is slow. If he wakes, we kill him. If others noticed. We will kill them too. We shut the door and leave fast with our cargo."
"Two gold," Edda said, as if to remind herself why simple plans matter.
"Two gold," Brann said. "One was given. One when we hand them over, breathing and not too broken. We will play with the spirit contract with some torture."
Rusk grinned a little. "And the boy," he said, almost as a joke. "Who is he?"
Brann shrugged. "I did my own information gathering. What I found and the old Stewart said are true and similar. No one with a house," he said. "No crest. No name. A commoner. An orphan maybe. Or maybe a drunk’s mistake with some Traven hooker girl, maybe." He said it flatly. He did not hate the boy. He did not care. Feeling for cargo is not how you grow old in this line.
Edda blew out through her nose. "No crest," she said. "No noise when he goes missing. I can play with him a bit before we hand him over?"
"Not if we are fast, There won’t be anyone who will look for him." Brann said. "You shouldn’t play with the living cargo. Your weird perverted playing... is terrible. Especially with young boys. I don’t want to watch you while you play with his body. You will suck him dry. We can torture him for fun but not in your sexual ways."
Midnight crawled toward the Bent Penny like a shadow. The lane outside was empty. The shed in the yard held the smell of old straw for horses and cows. There three chickens slept like warm stones. The cat on the shed roof was awake now. His eyes were lamps. He watched the top of the wall and did not blink.
Inside, the tavern woman slept in a chair in her small room with a blanket over her knees and a ledger open near her hand. Pim slept on a thin mattress bed with one foot out from under his blanket. He was too young to tuck both feet in at night.
In room three, Fizz dreamed of a festival made of pancakes and chocolate flags. John slept without noise and without dream, the way tired people sleep when they decide to trust the night for a few hours.
Brann came first. He stood in the alley beside the tavern, where shadows are thick and the wall is low. Edda joined him. Rusk came last, after one more slow walk down the lane to be sure that no one’s head was at a window. They did not speak. They did not need to. They had done this type of work many times in many small rooms.
Brann tested the bricks with his hands. He found the old ones by feel. He climbed without a sound. Edda followed. Rusk took the coil of rope and went last. On the other side of the wall, the cat tensed but did not call. Some cats love drama. Some cats love quiet. This was a quiet cat.
On the roof, the tiles were old. Edda tested them with a finger. Third row from the gutter, five tiles in, one rocked. She slipped a thin knife under the edge and lifted it slow. It came up like a loose tooth. Cool night air rose from the hole. It smelled like soap, old boards, and sleep.
Brann slid the bell from his pocket. It was small, dull metal, tied with a soft ribbon so it would not clink. He held it over the gap and rang it once. The sound was not a sound a person hears with their ears. It was a light tap on a thin thing inside the chest. It was the kind of ring that makes dogs sit up and spirits frown.
In the room below, Fizz twitched. He did not wake. He did not like the ring. He did not know why. He rolled and tucked his nose further under his own arm.
Brann waited five slow breaths and rang it again. Then he nodded to Edda. She slid the cloth under the window sash with a stick and let it drop between the bed and the table. The cloth had a sharp clean smell you would miss if you did not know it. It was made of herbs that love sleep more than most people do.
Upstairs, in the dark, the three of them counted without moving their lips.
One. Two. Three...
At the far end of the alley, a drunk man argued with a door that was not his door. He gave up and lay down and began to snore. It was a brave snore. It would not wake him.
Nine. Ten. Eleven...
Under the cloth, the sleep oil slowly melted and made the air heavy. It did not choke. It did not hurt. It did what it was supposed to do. It whispered to lungs that wanted to rest anyway.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine...
Fizz wrinkled his nose and made a small unhappy sound. He dreamed about a bell, and in the dream he threw the bell at the cabbage knight and the knight ran away. He smiled in his sleep. Then he frowned.
Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight...
Brann set the net ready. He raised his hand to Edda. She set her hands on her knife and her rope. Rusk slid the soft gag out so it would be ready. They all breathed in together and let the breath go. It was time.
And that is where the night held them, on the roof, over an old tile, above a small room, with a sleeping boy and a small spirit who did not yet know why bells should not ring in the dark.
They were in the alley at the tavern. The rope was coiled. The net was set. The bell was quiet. The plan was about to move.