CHAPTER 96: 96: THE ACADEMY TEST VI

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Fizz finished his slice at a speed that made three men stare. "I am small but mighty," he told them, proud and honest.

They thanked the tavern woman, left a coin on the table, and stepped back into the day. The light had shifted. The streets had different faces now. Work crews moved in groups. Students in gray coats changed course and flowed to a new lane. A baker propped his door with a broom and let out a long breath that smelled like sugar and heat.

They did not wander without aim. They moved in a wide loop that held the academy near the middle. They found the south yard gate, counted the doors, and found the path that came to it without having to cross the largest street. They found a small square with a clock that had only one hand and still worked. They found a paper stall that sold plain sheets bound with string and a pencil for a fair price. John bought one bundle and the pencil. He liked having a place to write lists and shapes and the thoughts that did not sit still yet.

They found a paper stall that sold plain sheets bound with string and a pencil for a fair price. John bought one bundle and the pencil. He liked having a place to write lists and shapes and the thoughts that did not sit still yet.

Next to the stall was a rack of small trinkets — folded fans painted with flowers, birds, and fish. Fizz floated straight toward them, paw already reaching.

"John," Fizz said, voice urgent. "Buy me this fan."

John raised a brow. "Why?"

Fizz spread his little arms wide. "Look at me. I am covered in fur. Do you know what fur does in the sun? It cooks me like a stew. With this fan, I will be elegant, majestic, and also alive."

John crossed his arms. "You are an elemental. You can summon wind. You could cool yourself with magic whenever you like."

Fizz gasped, horrified. "Magic is work! Why waste precious mana when a painted fish can do the job? Look — it even smiles at me. This is destiny."

"You are flying all the time," John pointed out. "Flying is wind. You already cool yourself."

Fizz threw his paws in the air, spinning in outrage. "That is a travel wind! Travel winds are rude and messy. This is a comfortable wind! This is civilized! Also, I don’t want to smell like sweaty fur every time I go somewhere hot. Do you want me to smell like tragedy?"

John said nothing, only gave him a long, flat look.

Fizz pressed his paws together. "Please. For happiness. For beauty. For the soul of art. Also — also because I need something to wave dramatically when I refuse bad ideas. Imagine me fanning myself and saying, ’No, terrible plan.’ It will be poetry."

John sighed. "You are impossible."

"I am small but persuasive," Fizz said quickly. "So... yes?"

"Yes," John admitted at last.

Fizz cheered and darted to the counter. He paid proudly and unfolded the tiny fan with a flourish. It had a painted fish on it, blue and red, leaping out of a wave. Fizz fluttered it twice across his round face and sighed in deep contentment.

"My temper feels better already," he announced.

After that they passed a seamstress shop with a dress in the window the color of fresh cream and a jacket that would have made John look like a messenger who had won a prize. Fizz pressed his nose to the glass and fogged it. "One day," he said. "After we do ten brave things and three wise things."

"After we have the coins," John said.

"Yes," Fizz said. "That too."

They found a small shrine tucked under a stair with a bowl of water and a slice of lemon floating in it. Fizz looked at it and grew quiet. John touched the edge of the bowl with two fingers. He did not pray. He thought of a river and a ferryman and two coins in a small cloth bag and decided again not to stop.

They passed a smithing lane and John stopped to watch a man draw a thin rod from a small forge and twist it while it was still red. The turns were clean. The light on the hot metal was good. John smiled a little. Fizz watched John’s face and smiled too.

"You like this," Fizz said.

"Yes," John said.

"We can like this and magic both," Fizz said. "No law against liking two good things."

They passed a cart of sweet buns. Fizz begged without shame. John bought one and split it. It had a little jam in the center. Fizz ate his half in two bites and licked his paw and said the jam was trying hard.

They passed a boy juggling in a square. He had three apples and a hopeful hat at his feet. Fizz clapped and dropped a coin in the hat and told the boy to add a fourth apple when he felt brave. The boy nodded like a man receiving orders from a general.

They turned a slow corner and found themselves back at the tavern lane. The sun had moved closer to the tops of the roofs. The shade was deeper than before. The air had changed from bright to warm.

John checked the token in his pocket. He checked the folded rule sheet. He checked the small bundle of paper he had bought. He checked the way from the tavern door to the academy south yard in his mind. He checked the way back.

Fizz hovered near his shoulder and hummed one line of a song and then stopped. "I will save my song for later," he said. "I have been told I cannot explode. It is very hard."

"You can hum," John said.

Fizz hummed. It was a soft sound. It did not bother anyone. It sounded like a small kettle that would be ready in one minute. Then, as if the kettle boiled over, he burst into a proper song:

"Marching feet and steady hearts,

Rules to follow, clever parts.

No pranks, no roasts, no sudden flame,

Just quiet Fizz, a noble name.

Beds unbroken, doors kept sound,

Honest trouble all around.

If a cabbage knight should pass my way,

I’ll glare in silence, not make him pay.

O coin be fair, O rules be kind,

Let us not be left behind.

South yard waits, the hour draws near,

We march with paper, pen, and cheer!"

Fizz finished with a dramatic bow in the air, then fanned himself with the painted fish fan as though he had drained his own energy. "There. A song about me being good. History will thank me."

They stepped back into the tavern. The woman behind the counter looked up and raised one brow. "Still honest trouble," she asked.

"Still honest," John said.

"Good," she said.

They went up to room three. The room was still clean. The light had shifted a little on the beds. The chickens in the yard had moved to the other side of the grass strip. A cat had taken the sunny spot on the shed roof and claimed it with a yawn.

John set the paper on the table and took the pencil from the string. He wrote three lines. Times. Places. What to carry. He made the letters neat. He folded the paper and put it in the small bag.

Fizz floated over the beds and chose the one by the window by lying down on it like a king. He rolled to the side and threw one paw over his face. "Wake me if a cabbage knight walks by," he said. "I have a list of words for him. I will not use them. I will only think them. That is legal."

"No roasting," John said.

"No roasting," Fizz said. "Only thinking."

"Also no pranks," John added.

Fizz cracked one eye. "Not even small ones."

"Not even small ones," John said. "We do not use Sera’s name. We do not use the temple’s name. We carry our own weight. We follow the rules. We will be on time."

Fizz shut his eyes again and sighed like a hero who had accepted his fate. "Very well," he said. "I will be so good that people will write songs about how good I was and how tired I made myself by being so good."

John leaned his back to the wall and let his eyes close for a count of ten. Then he opened them and stood. "We will go out again," he said. "We will walk the way to the south yard one more time. Then we rest until it is time to go."

Fizz popped up like a cork. "March," he said in a tiny voice, and they marched to the door like two soldiers who had remembered dinner.

They left the tavern and walked the short route they had chosen earlier. It took seven minutes at a calm pace. It took five at a steady pace. They timed both. They looked for small things that could slow them. They found a narrow step where a stone rose a little and marked it in their minds. They found a cart that liked to block a corner at the wrong time of day. They found a door from which a baker liked to step backward without looking. They folded these things into their plan and felt better.

They returned to the tavern again. The day has become the kind of afternoon that holds its breath before it begins to fall. Men with work on their hands drank water and did not talk. Women with baskets made the last rounds. The cat on the shed roof stretched and made no promises.

John sat on the bed by the window. Fizz settled on the bed near the wall. The room held them like a small boat in a quiet cove. Outside, the city kept moving. Inside, both of them were still.

They did not sleep. They rested with their eyes open. They listened to the small sounds. They let the lines of the day settle so they would not shake when they stood again. They thought about the rules and about Elara’s face, firm and fair, and about Sera’s letter, and about a crystal that had shone a clean single ring with no push and no lie. They did not think about revenge. Not now. There would be time for that later. This hour belonged to a different vow.

When the light on the floor had moved a hand’s width, John stood again and checked the token and the folded sheet and the small bag. Fizz did the same in his own way by patting himself down and declaring that he was present and accounted for, with his good manners in his pocket and his bad ones locked in a box.

They were ready to go to the briefing when the hour came.