Chapter 172: 172: Academy Life Starts XXIX

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The room breathed its old breath. John’s head tipped forward. Fizz’s small weight warmed his thigh. The tin lantern ticked as the heat inside it faded. Somewhere far overhead a bell clunked once in its sleep and decided not to ring yet.

John slept.

He did not dream of alleys or bells or void. He dreamed of warm water running over stone and a brush that never wore out.

A few hours slid by. Fizz woke first — the way small creatures do, all at once. He stretched like a string being plucked, yawned a silent yawn big enough to swallow a raisin, then peered up at John’s face to check if it was still a face and not a broom. Satisfied, he floated off John’s lap and did a lazy circle, testing the air.

The smell had changed. Still bad. Less cruel. He grinned. "We are winning," he whispered to the lamps, because someone had to be told.

He nudged the lantern wick and brought it back to a proper glow with a precise spark. Then he hopped down and, with great ceremony, set a folded rag under John’s head like a pillow. "My master," he announced to the hooks, "is a stone prince."

John’s eyes opened at that. He blinked, sat up, and took stock the way he always did — first the pocket (egg, warm), then the door (shut), then the ledger (where he left it, ink cap on), then Fizz (present, insufferable).

"Up," Fizz said. "The enemy has regrouped. Also I want soup."

"We don’t have soup," John said, standing and rolling his shoulders until something in his spine sighed.

Fizz pointed his nose at the sealed storage door. "We have soup for the egg," he said piously. "Different soup. Also I saved one last tart crumb." He produced it like a magician, then ate it in one triumphant bite. "Gone. Now I am faster."

John touched his inner pocket. The egg was definitely warmer than before, as if a small sun had been tucked into wool. His chest felt... lighter at the thought, even while the well inside him still paid the steady tax of the mana sheath.

"We keep going," he said.

Fizz saluted with both paws. "Captain Soap, to arms."

They did not start with the void. They started with the stone.

John took the long-handled brush and a bucket, tipped a measure of lye into hot water from the wall tap, and stirred with a broken stick until the surface shivered with promise. Fizz took the tin lantern and drifted to the first numbered square. "Section One, top to bottom," he intoned, like a priest for bubbles.

John climbed the short ladder and began scrubbing the ledge where spray had dried to a hard, ugly map months ago. The lye found the old blood and woke it up; Fizz chased it, used two neat swirls of water to rinse clean, then a breath of controlled warm air to drive the wet into the big drain.

"See?" Fizz said, cocking his head. "Water, then air. Teamwork. The elements obey if you ask with manners."

"You aren’t the one to talk about manners," John said, and scrubbed another line.

Fizz hummed, and then he started a new song — slower, with a steady beat that matched the push-pull of the brush.

Song of the Four Honest Hands-

Brush hand, bucket hand,

Water wind in a band.

One scrubs, one swirls,

One dries, one stands.

We do not boast to stone and stain,

We work, we rinse, we work again.

There is something true about work when it is done in the right order. The room began to accept it. The ledges turned from black to brown to the real gray they remembered being. The wall lamps burned cleaner. The old hooks did not shine — they were rough iron, not friends of shine — but the gritty film left them.

After an hour, John’s knuckles were pink and the brush had earned its keep twice. Fizz had sung six verses, eaten two bites of bread, and soaked himself twice by accident and once on purpose. The drain carried a dark ribbon to the pit. The pit did its job and did not complain.

When they reached the second section, Fizz set the lantern on a high peg, flicked his ears, and said, "Egg time. A small meal. Then more scrubbing or I will be bored from the work."

John nodded. He checked his well with the new habit the system had taught him — a mind’s thumb against a mind’s measure — and opened his palm.

This time he kept the void small and low over a shallow tray, the way a careful cook holds a spoon over a pot. He fetched two sacks of the worst leavings they had swept aside — shreds so small that even a rat would write a letter of complaint — and let the void take them. The black drank in two quiet gulps. The mill purred.

[System: Feeding channel open. Hatch Progress: 12% → 14% → 15%.

Mana 61% → 54%.]

Fizz leaned in close, eyes bright. "Numbers of progress?"

"Fourteen or Fifteen maybe," John said.

Fizz did a tiny jig midair, kicked his heels together, then sobered at once. "Not too fast. Save your bucket." His paw patted John’s wrist where the lines of tendons stood out.

John nodded, closed the mouth with two fingers, and set the brush to the wall again. He fell back into the steady rhythm. Push. Pull. Rinse. Dry. Fizz ran wind over each strip, an even, breath-warm flow that made no smoke and left no smell — just the faint clean note of lye and water doing what water was made to do.

They were nearly finished with Section Three when the door rattled.

Knuckles. A laugh. The kind of laugh boys practice so it sounds older than they are.

Fizz’s ears flattened. John’s hand paused. He did not look at the door. He kept scrubbing a slow, straight line.

A voice came through the wood. "Ho, Disposal King," it said. "Open and let the fizz fan club see your crown."

Another voice — higher, trying hard to be cruel and not getting there — added, "We brought candles. For the smell."

Fizz opened his mouth to compose a roast.

After a while with the fan club...

"Help me with edger," John said, calm as chalk.

Fizz’s mouth shut with an audible click. He said goodbye and zipped to the desk, tugged the ledger open, dipped the pen with a flourish, and waited like an over-excited clerk.

John scrubbed to the end of his stroke, rinsed, dried, then walked to the door and spoke in a voice that traveled without raising.

"Slip," he said.

"Ah," the first voice said. Paper rustled. It was probably a handkerchief. John could hear the smile in it.

"No slip," John said. "Come back with one or don’t come back."

"Let us in to see your pet," the second voice tried, new angle, no craft in it. "We want to clap."

Fizz’s eyes went molten.

John looked at the door and said, in that same flat tone, "Leave your names. Or I will write your jackets: brown coat with missing cuff; voice like a split reed. The warden will find the names under those clothes."

Silence. Then a laugh that wasn’t sure if it should be a laugh or a cough.

"Just fun," the first voice said. "No harm."

"All fun is harmful to someone," John said. "Name if you like. Or walk." He did not sound angry. He sounded like a man asking if a board fit a wall.

Shoes dragged. The door took a small, sulky kick, the kind that doors have lived with since doors were invented, and then the feet went away.

Fizz sighed an enormous sigh of restrained poetry. "Allow me," he said, and wrote in the ledger:

Late night visit. No slip. Voices: one "reedy," one "trying to be a villain." Kicked the door like a mouse. No entry. — Fizz (Hero Clerk)

John went back to work. Fizz hummed a new verse about mice kicking doors and doors yawning.

They finished Section Three. Then Four. The wall looked like a wall again and not a map of mistakes. John’s hands stung. He poured a little oil on his palms, rubbed it in, and then wiped them dry on a rag because oil and lye are not friends if you want a brush to bite.

[System: Mana 49%. Hatch Progress: 16%.]

They fed the void again, careful, small. Fizz announced numbers like the bell — solemn, pleased. "Seventeen. Seventeen and a sip."

At the fourth hour of the night — the hour when even the most stubborn city cats lie down and pretend to be rugs — a key is turned in the outer lock. John was already moving. He closed the void, set the brush down, wiped his hands, and stood by the desk.

The door opened. Warden Lutch stood there, gray robe, gray eyes, hair scraped back in a statement that said she would not be impressed by sleep, fear, or jokes.

Her gaze took the room in one trained sweep. Ledges. Floor. Drains. Lamps. Hooks. The numbered squares. The ledger opened to the right page.

She stepped inside. The smell reached for her and then remembered itself and took a step back.

"Report," she said.