CHAPTER 103: 103: THE ACADEMY TEST XIII

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Master Hale lifted one finger. Fartray stopped speaking as if she had put a hand on his lips. She did not look at him long. "He did not aim at your head," she said. "He aimed low. He answered an attack. He ignored our rule to answer it. So did you. Both of you are guilty."

Fartray’s mouth opened and closed like a fish sent to school. He pointed at his coat. The drops of mud on his lapel now looked like small moons. He pointed at his cheek, which still held a thin brown line like a strange blush. He could not say any more without sounding like a child who had dropped a pie.

"Names and tokens," the brown-haired proctor said briskly, stepping between them like a gate that had picked where to be. "All three. Now."

John held out his token. "John," he said. "No house name."

Fizz pointed at himself. "Lord Fizz. And Lord of Snacks."

The proctor did not write that down. He wrote FIZZ, CONTRACTED SPIRIT next to JOHN, and then he turned to Fartray.

"Fartray of Aqua family," Fartray said, chin climbing back up the tower. He put his token out without looking at it like tokens were for other people.

The proctor checked each token mark and scratched letters with a small black pencil onto a narrow strip of card. He flipped it and stamped the back with a neat click. He did it the way he did everything: fast, fair, not distracted.

Master Venn spoke to the yard without raising his voice. "Briefing is over," he said. "North table for handouts. Read them. Tomorrow you rest. If you want a story, tell it to your pillow, not to the gate. Go. The briefing is over."

People moved, slow at first, then in the usual city flow. But they did not go far. They flowed around the small circle in the middle like water around a stone in a stream. Eyes cut sideways. Jokes formed and hid. Whispers brewed. A few older students from the path had stopped as well. They did not hide their interest. The news loves boots.

Master Hale came down the steps with no hurry in her step and no smile on her face. She stopped two paces from John. She looked at his open hand, now empty. She looked at Fizz. She looked at Fartray’s cheek.

"Listen," she said, to the three of them and to the guards and to anyone in a ten-step circle. "This is the academy. In this academy, house names sit on the bench. Rules stand. You three broke them. You will fix it. John, Fartray, you will file statements before sundown with the north clerk. Short. True. And you... Fluffy contract, you will help the gardener wash the mud out of the hedge and off Mr. Fartray’s coat. You can use magic. Soap and water and cloth. If you don’t clean your mess, you will be banned from entering the school if your master John passes the test."

Fizz’s ears sank. "Are you kidding," he said to himself, tiny. Then he rallied fast with a plan. "Fine. I love soap. I will do it for John."

Fartray’s ears burned again. "Master, you cannot ask me to let a street spirit touch—"

"Coat off," Master Hale said, so dry it could light kindling. "Coat off. Shirt off. Soap does not care about your crest."

The yard gave a small, helpless smile all at once. It did not laugh out loud. It was a respectful yard. But it smiled.

Master Venn glanced at Fizz. "No damage while washing," he added. "Be silent please."

Fizz folded his paws under his chin like a man swearing a vow. "I will be as silent as a devout plant," he said. "A plant with standards."

Master Venn kept a straight face with effort. "Good."

Fartray made a face as if his mouth had bitten his own pride. He unclipped his coat. The light blue piping caught the sun in one last proud line. He handed the coat to his friend. The friend held it as if it were made of sugar and sadness. Fartray looked at his lapel. The mud dots had dried to small brown maps. He looked as if they had burned him.

Fizz worked the rag in small, neat circles. He did not crack a joke. He did not roll his eyes. He washed with water magic like a quiet craftsman who had decided to be useful for a minute and nothing more.

But Inside, he smirked.

This was not his job. He did not wash clothes. He was not a laundry spirit. But a bully had shouted and attacked him, and a rule had been pressed down, and Fizz had decided he would try a new lesson: bully the bullies back, and do it with a smile.

He leaned in as if to check a thread and breathed a whisper the coat could hear but people could not. The sound was not a word in the world’s language. It was old and small and from Fizz’s world. A seed of heat, no bigger than a pin head, slipped between the weft and the warp. It was not a flame from this side of things. It would not be detected by anyone . It would not wake for a while. Two hours, give or take. When it woke, it would bite cloth and only cloth — anything the coat touched in a pile, anything that rubbed sleeves with it in a basket. Not a blaze. Not a danger to walls or wood. Just a mean little hunger that would turn a fine thread to ash and leave pride naked.

No trace. No signature. No mana stain for a proctor to sniff.

Fizz pressed the rag, rinsed, pressed again. He kept his face soft and simple.

"When it happens," he thought, the corner of his mouth trying very hard not to curl, "I will finally see what a fart looks like when he smells smoke."