Chapter 166: 166: Academy Life Starts XXIII

---

They were there for a long time.

John set the first brush to stone and pushed. The bristles rasped like a saw through a thin tree. Brown came up in swirls. Old red came up in shadows. He rinsed, scrubbed again, and found more. The room did not give up its dirt easily. Rooms like this never do.

Fizz held the little tin lantern high and drifted slow along the wall like a careful moon. He tried to breathe through his mouth. It did not help. "I can taste the smell," he said, voice small and dramatic. "It tastes like a wet boot that learned to read and then ate its own book."

"Do not talk about taste," John said. He scrubbed a bolt head until it shone like a small coin lost in a bad memory.

Fizz lasted three minutes before he needed a snack. He pulled a tiny wrapped sweet from his bag, nibbled it with ceremony, then tucked the wrapper away like a man hiding treasure. "All right," he declared, braver now. "Time for real magic."

He slid to the long trough, put both paws out, and called water. He did not make a show of it. Water came to him the way small birds come to a quiet hand. It lifted from the trough in a smooth curve and ran down the wall like a silk ribbon, chasing lye, lifting old grease and old blood. Fizz guided it in thin sheets so it would rinse and not flood.

John scrubbed where the water ran. He worked top to bottom like he had said. He kept his strokes even, his breath even. He did not rush. Rushing breaks the wrist. Breaking the wrist breaks the day.

They made a rhythm without talking: Fizz wet, John scrub, Fizz rinse, John dry with a rag, move the chalk mark one hand to the right, start again.

Fizz started humming, because songs grow out of work the way weeds grow out of cracks. The hum turned into a whisper of words and then into a small silly tune he decided was brave enough to be sung out loud.

Song of the First Scrub-

Scrub the bolt and scrub the seam,

make the stone forget its dream.

Rinse it down and wipe it dry,

make the stink pack up and fly.

Brush, brush, brush—no fuss,

bubbles march in line with us.

John did not say "good song." He did not say anything. He kept the pace. But his mouth softened at the corners.

After an hour, Fizz stopped and leaned on his lantern as if it had a shoulder. "We will die here," he said. "They will find our noble bones and say, ah yes, the brave cleaners of old."

John wrung a rag. "We will live," he said. "And the floor will shine."

Fizz blew out a breath so long it could have been two. He hovered, watched John’s hands, then watched the heap of rags, then watched the gutter that ran around the edge of the room. Bits of old string and old flesh sat in the grate like schoolboys who did not want to go home.

He squinted. "We are fools," he said suddenly.

John looked up. "How."

Fizz pointed with his lantern paw. "We are fighting each stain like it is a bandit with a story. Why not move the bandits out of town first."

"Explain," John said.

Fizz floated down to the grate and tapped it. "Water and fire can clean the stone. But the rot that is stuck in the cracks will fight each brush. Why not... throw it away faster. You have a... doom ball."

John’s shoulders lifted and fell. "I have a void," he said.

"Yes," Fizz said, eyes brightening. "A small one. A polite one. Make a tiny doom ball near the grate. I will wash the worst gunk toward it. You eat it. Not the floor. Not the iron. Just the... badness. The rotten bits. The old... meat ghosts."

John set the brush down. He did not like using the void here. He liked using it even less on men. But he had learned one thing fast: tools are for work. If the tool does the work clean, use it clean.

"Try," he said.

Fizz bobbed hard, excited. "Yes! Science and doom!"

John knelt by the gutter. He set his palm over the grate and breathed. He did not swell the large void. He did not need to be large. He asked the world for a small absence, the size of a plum, then the size of a walnut, then a little smaller. The air dipped. Dust ticks fell into a circle no wider than a coin. He set the pull soft and low, the way you pull a cloth through your fingers to find a snag.

"Ready," he said.

Fizz called a thin stream and ran it along the edge. Little clots of old rot lifted and slid like heavy jelly. The stream carried them to the grate. The tiny void took them. No splash. No smell increased. Just gone.

Fizz’s face lit with wicked joy. "This," he breathed, "is deeply satisfying."

They worked that way a while: water, brush, void, wipe. Fizz’s courage grew with each little clump that vanished. He started a new song. This one had a beat that made his paws tap the air.

Chant of the Tiny Doom-

Little hole, little hole, eat the yuck,

take the rot and take the muck.

Leave the stone and leave the brace,

put the gross in a nameless place.

Swirl and sip, no splash, no cry—

goodbye slime and goodbye fly.

John kept the pull tight. He checked the grate rings with his fingertips every few minutes to make sure iron stayed iron and not a story. The ring hummed low and plain. It was held.

They moved to section 2. The wall lamps bothered Fizz, so he turned the tin lantern into a dance partner and spun slowly as he poured. He slipped into a waltz only he could hear.

"Do not dance over the bucket," John said.