CHAPTER 66: 66: THE STRANGER RETURNS VIII

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He looked down. The surface shone. He hated the shine. He looked up again. He tightened his arms around Fizz. The small body leaned in with a small sound that was not a word but felt like one.

"Now," John said.

He slid forward. The water climbed to his waist and then his belly and then toward his ribs. His breath tried to run. He caught it by the collar. He kept it on a leash of numbers. In. Four. Out. Four. On the next breath the water reached high enough to touch the place where memory had written its name in him.

The room tilted. The air thinned. The wooden rim under his hands went slick, not with water, but with the sensation of old panic rising from a place that did not listen to reason. A far sound that was not in the room pressed at his ears, the small roar of blood that always pretended to be laughter from long ago. His vision narrowed a fraction.

Fizz’s paws pressed against his wrist. His voice came steady and close. "You are here. With me. In our forge. Tonight. You can stand up. You can sit down. You decide." He inhaled deliberately, loud enough that John could hear it. "Breathe like me. Do not copy a pond that belongs in a dead man’s house."

John followed the rhythm. He matched it because matching is easier than inventing. He stared at the wood grain on the far wall and pretended it was a river he could dam with his eyes. The first hard knock in his chest softened. The second faded. The third came late and weak, like a bully that had forgotten his own schedule.

"Good," Fizz said. "Very good. If this tub had hands it would applaud for your efforts."

John did not trust his voice, so he nodded. He let another breath out and felt the tightness loosen one notch. It did not open like a door in a tale. It did not vanish like a trick. It gave ground like a tired guard who had to admit he was outmatched.

He stayed like that for a long count, then two, then three. The heat worked its way into his hips and lower back and unhooked small clamps he had not noticed. He smelled oak and iron and steam. He heard the soft pop of a settling plank. His world went from a tunnel to a room again.

He lifted his eyes and looked at Fizz, who was watching him with a mixture of pride and worry that only family wears correctly. The little creature’s glow had returned to a warm halo. His ears had relaxed. He was not pretending to be brave anymore. He simply was.

"All right," Fizz said. "That is enough for tonight."

John let out a breath that left him lighter. He sat up a little and felt the water slide away from his ribs. He did not chase it. He let it go. He put his feet under him and stood. For a sharp instant the room tilted again, then righted. He stepped out of the tub, water running off his legs in small rivers that made pleasant noises when they hit the boards.

Fizz shook himself like a dog that had learned to be dignified and failed. He hovered in front of John and peered at his face as if to read the words written there before John himself could see them.

"I did not cure you," Fizz said. His voice was soft and honest. "But we moved the line. It’s great progress."

John nodded once. "You were right. It helps to hold something warm."

"I accept this as a general life lesson," Fizz said. He puffed proudly. "Also you owe me at least two hundred pancakes for all the work I have done in the past weeks. Possibly three hundred if you add today’s work."

"We will see what the morning brings," John said.

"It will bring merchants and coins and a ledger and a very smug tub," Fizz said. He drifted toward the door and then back again as if he could not decide whether to announce the victory to the moon or keep it in the room like a candle.

John took a towel from the peg and dried himself with the simple care of a man who had fought and won a small battle that no one would clap for in the square. He dressed. He sat. He let his breath settle into the pattern it knew without being told.

He looked at his hands and thought of vows. He did not speak them. He did not need to. The village did not need to hear who would suffer or when. The house that had denied his name would learn his name as a curse in time. The brothers who had counted his breaths under water would count their own in fear. The Duke who had used silence as a knife would be cut by the same blade from the other side.

For now there was warm oak and iron and a small friend who called him family. For now there was morning to meet and work to do and a lab to build and a list of tools to invent that would allow one man to push back against a house, a city, a world. For now there was a tub cooling gently and looking innocent and very proud of itself.

Fizz floated down until he was level with John’s shoulder. He bumped it with his head like a cat that had remembered how to be tender. "You did well," he said. "Tomorrow we will sell ore. The day after we will buy flour. The day after that we buy syrup. We will build a tower of pancakes so high that birds need to apply for permits to fly near it."

John let the corner of his mouth turn up. "I will require a tasteful flag."

"I will design three options," Fizz said. "Classic. Modern. Murder baby."

"No," John said. "Not that last one."