Chapter 154: 154: Academy Life Starts X (Birthday celebrations part Four)

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"Decorations by us," Edda said. "I will also speak to the old man who strings lanterns at the corner. He owes me a small favor he thinks is a large one."

Penny nodded. "You two are a menace," she said. "I like it."

Pim, already half out the door with both notes, hopped from one foot to the other. "Can I put Lord Fizz on the banner," he begged. "Small in the corner. With a cool look?"

Fizz considered. "You may put the letters LF in the corner," he decreed. "In tiny letters only ants can see. Ants will be our friends."

Pim saluted and ran.

"Go get your other invitations," Penny said, pointing with her chin at the door. "We will strip the tables and beat the rugs and bribe the stove. Come back by evening and tell us how many mouths."

Fizz threw her a paw–kiss. "You will be famous," he declared. "The goddess herself will send you a ribbon."

Penny rolled her eyes and started clearing a shelf that had been a problem for a month and now suddenly had no chance against her.

Fizz left Penny triumphant and fed. He and Edda split at the corner. "I buy ribbon," she said. "You charm holy women."

"Both are my skills," Fizz said. "I got a meeting with Ina."

He zipped to the temple again with the speed of a rumor. The square was full of slow feet and quick prayers. Fizz went in the side door like a stray sunbeam and found Sera in a small kitchen with flour on her wrist and old Ina at the long table cutting pears like art.

Ina looked up at him and softened without trying to hide it. She had the kind of face that has been kind so long it forgot how to be anything else. "There you are, back already" she said. "You will taste it?"

Fizz landed on the table edge, whiskers forward. "I will taste," he agreed.

Ina put a warm mini–cake in his paws. It was small as a palm, round, with a well of soft fruit in the middle. He bit. The world cheered. He made a sound that was rude for a temple and Sera laughed into the back of her hand to be polite.

"Tomorrow," Sera said, "we will bring one large cake and many little cakes like the one you ate. We will bring a jar of temple honey. We will bring a jar of pickled lemon because I like it and it will confuse everyone until they like it too."

Fizz swallowed with reverence. "You are a saint," he said. "A sweet saint. A sticky saint. Bring a good gift for John. But you can’t defeat me with the gift. Mine will be the best."

Sera’s eyes warmed. "Already in a box," she said. "I am not competing with you. I will give something useful to John..."

Ina patted Fizz’s head like he was a small boy who had been very brave. Her hand smelled like butter and time. "You tell the Traven owner," she said, "I will want her big oven free for one hour. I will not set it on fire. I will make it remember joy."

"I will tell her," Fizz promised. He finished the cake and licked his fingers like a criminal. "I must go. Work to do. Lies to tell without lying. See you tomorrow."

Sera brushed flour from her hands. "Give John my blessing," she said. "Tell him to sleep early. Tomorrow will be noisy."

Fizz saluted with the remains of the cake and went out.

He made one more stop, because he is who he is. He hooked around the barracks yard and buzzed above the fence just long enough to get Elara’s attention. She looked up from polishing a gauntlet and gave him the kind of glare that could crack eggs. He smiled back like a fool and mimed eating cake with both paws. She did not smile. Her eyes softened at the edges anyway. She nodded once: I heard. I will come. Do not cause trouble on the way .

Fizz nodded back: I will try. No promises. He zipped away before a cabbage knight could ask him for a form.

By late afternoon he was back at the academy gate, breathless and content. He showed the pass to the guard again. The guard squinted at the stamp as if stamps are creatures that sometimes try to be other stamps when no one is looking, then waved him through.

He flew the long hall fast enough that the carpet did not have time to be smug. He tapped on Snake’s door, poked his head in, and announced: "All done. Party lives. We will be out tomorrow and back before night bells. Decorations will be legal. Cake will be very sweet because without sweets it will kill with joy."

Snake made the paper–laugh. "Good," he said. "I will send no gift that is a letter, because letters make secrets heavy. I will send someone a gift with letters."

"Good," Fizz said, saluted one last time for the dramatic practice, and fled before he got any questions about the hat.

The day slid toward evening. Fizz found John in East House, where John had spent hours walking, and learning and helping a second – year carry books because the second year had looked like he would drop them and cry and then lie about crying. John had eaten soup in the west hall and located the good water tap again. He had sat for a long time in the library smelling the old book pages. He had watched a first–year practice magic circle under a senior’s eye and had learned three things just with his eyes.

Fizz landed on his shoulder like a crown. "Progress report," he said.

John lifted a brow.

Fizz held up one paw and ticked items off. "Gate pass: acquired. Penny: recruited. Edda: decorating. Sera: invited. Ina: baking. Elara: threatened into joy. Pim: crime errands. Cake: incoming. Pickles: apparently a feature. Secret: intact. Rules: bent with permission. We are artists."

John let a smile leak. "You have done so many things," he said. "Thank you."

Fizz pretended to faint at the rare compliment, then sat up fast. "Tomorrow," he whispered, thrilled. "Tomorrow we eat like kings and behave like monks."

"We will be back before the night bell," John said, because he is John.

"We will be back before the bell rings the bell," Fizz said. "We will be so early the bell will ask us how we got there."

Outside the window, the last light pulled itself off the yard and went to sleep on the far roofs. East House took a long breath and settled its old bones. Somewhere, a warden’s key ring made a tiny thunder. Somewhere else, Ray sat at a desk and tried to make sense of rules that did not care about his last name. In the Bent Penny, Penny beat another rug and laughed once to herself at nothing at all. In the temple, Ina slid two pans into an oven and whispered to them like babies.

John hung his coat on its hook. Fizz curled on the pillow. The future waited at a tavern table that had been scrubbed so hard it remembered the tree it came from.

Tomorrow would be loud. Tonight, they slept.