Chapter 188: 188: The First semester XI

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John lay on his back staring at the ceiling beam that always looked a little like a crooked finger. Curfew had rung; the dorm’s long hall had quieted to distant pipes and the soft cough of a tired staircase. Fizz still hadn’t come back.

He counted breaths because counting kept the line in his chest straight. Four in. Four out. Four in. Four out. Then he stopped counting and started worrying. If Fizz stayed out past the last bell and a patrolling proctor saw him, would that be another lecture from Warden Lutch tomorrow. Another punishment. Another duty. Another room that smelled like old decisions.

He swung his legs off the mattress. "I am going to find him," he muttered, already reaching for his coat.

The door bumped open.

Fizz scooted in backward like a celebrity dodging admirers, closed the door with a dramatic flourish, and leaned against it panting softly. His fur sparkled with confetti crumbs that were definitely not standard-issue. His whiskers were faintly sugared. He was smiling so hard his face had to take turns holding it.

John exhaled in a single, long line. "You are late."

Fizz put a paw over his tiny heart. "Correct. And heroic. But mostly correct."

"What were you doing?" John asked.

Fizz straightened, smoothed his chest fluff like it was a tie, and then could not help himself. He burst. "We have a club room."

"A what?" John said with curious eyes.

"An official one. Not just a mob of admirers wandering the halls like lost ducklings. A registered student association with a seal and a box of chalk and a weekly allotment of meeting biscuits."

John blinked. "A seal." Somewhere between disbelief and resignation.

Fizz nodded solemnly. "A wax seal with my club name on it. We tried to stamp it on a pie. It worked too well. Also we have bylaws. Very serious. Article One: No licking Lord Fizz without consent. Article Two: Bring snacks. Article Three: If you must faint when I enter, do it away from the table legs."

John sat back on the bed. The relief made him almost laugh. "Who registered you?"

"A third-year with neat handwriting and a tragic crush," Fizz said, counting on his paws. "Also four first-years who can chant on key, two second-years who draw wonderfully dramatic posters, and one upperclasswoman who declared herself Sergeant of Orderly Swooning. Her badge is a ribbon. It is very authoritative."

He zipped to the foot of the bed and perched like a little storyteller by a campfire. "You should have seen the room. We borrowed a disused music practice space. It smelled like old notes. They had painted my portrait on a sheet. My eyes are twelve percent too large. The effect is powerful."

"What happened in the evening?"

Fizz’s eyes glittered. "A girl tried to knit me. Not a sweater. Me. She said if I stood still long enough she could do a life-size Fizz in orange yarn. I told her I am already life-size in orange fur. She said two Fizzes would be better. I considered it. Then another girl brought cake. I reconsidered it loudly. There was a chant. They debuted it tonight. Listen."

He cleared his throat in a way that implied the throat had filled seats and sold out last month.

"Fizz, fizz, spark and whizz,

Teach us jokes and elements.

Fizz, fizz, whiskers biz,

Grant us a cake and ten percent."

John rubbed his forehead. "Ten percent of what."

"Everything," Fizz said gravely. "Also someone wrote FIZZ in large runes. We may have accidentally summoned an old broom. It swept the room twice and left with dignity."

John finally let himself smile. "I am glad you did not get caught."

Fizz wagged a paw. "I am a professional at not getting caught. Also I bribed the corridor monitor with a custard tart." His whiskers twitched. He leaned closer and sniffed. "You smell like temple soap. And star metal. And a little like... Sera."

John looked at the floorboard that creaked and would always creak. "We talked," he said. "We walked. The bell rang. She left. I came back."

Fizz’s grin softened. "Good. Your eyes look like someone set two small candles in them. That is a look I endorse."

They put the room back into something like order. Fizz wrestled with the blanket for a bit, lost, and then declared he had meant to sleep diagonally as a statement piece. John blew out the lamp and lay down. The line in his chest hummed once, steady. Outside, the quad sighed the way big buildings do when they remember they are full of kids.

Morning came with a knock that sounded like politeness learning to be brave. John opened the door to a young woman in a temple-blue mantle and a face that had never gotten away with lying.

"Message from Priestess Sera," she said, bowing a little. In her palm lay an oval of gray stone veined with pale gold. "Twin communication stone. She asks that you keep it close and try it when you have leave to go out."

"Thank you," John said. He took the stone and the quiet weight of it. It warmed once. He felt it answer something he had not said.

Fizz hovered by his shoulder, arms folded, eyes narrow with theatrical suspicion. "Does it also order bread," he asked. "If so, I approve."

The messenger blinked. "It does not."

"It should," Fizz said, then softened. "Thank you anyway."

Days turned into steps. Lectures stacked. Chalk squeaked. The campus’s old sycamores learned their newest names and gossiped about them across the quad. John and Fizz fell into the rhythm the academy demanded: morning bells, study, meals where people pretended not to stare, evening walks that kept to lawful routes. The line inside John held. Fizz made small chaos respectful enough to pass inspections.

On the fifth morning after the stone arrived, a bell rang with a note that meant assembly. First-years filed into the main hall, lamps bright along the walls, banners at half-pride because it was not a ceremony, just orders.

The instructor for field practice — Master Corin, a square-shouldered woman who wore her cloak like it had a spine — stepped to the front of the dais. She did not shout; her voice found all the corners anyway.

"Listen carefully," she said. "This is your first task week. It earns points. It earns respect. It earns mistakes you will not repeat."

Every head stilled. Every scrap of whisper decided it liked silence better.

"Tomorrow at dawn," Corin continued, "first-years have leave to depart for the Black Jungle training ground. You will travel by the highway to the east, two days on foot at a sensible pace. You will have three days to hunt. You will have two days to return. You will be back by the seventh dawn. If you are not back, the academy does not send a search party for late sleepers."

She let that sit. Then: "Hunt third-class wild beasts. Do not seek second-class. You will die. Do not pick fights with first-class. You will die louder and teach nothing. Collect cores. Two beast cores earn one point. Ten cores, five points. That is the cap for this task. Some of you will bring home none. That is also data."

A small murmur ran like a mouse along the back benches. Corin did not bother to be annoyed by it.

"You may hunt alone," she said, "or in teams. The points are awarded per person, not per group. If you cannot fight a third-class beast alone —and most of you cannot— you will earn your cores by doing what a living person does best: thinking, planning, flanking, trapping, helping someone swing who knows how to swing. You will not accept ’help’ from outside the academy. You will not bring along your cousin with broad shoulders and a jealous streak. You will not hire a hunter to walk next to you while you pretend. If we catch you, we will make you wish we had expelled you instead of the thing we will actually do, which is worse."

She folded her hands behind her. "If you do not wish to go, do not go. You will receive zero points. We will not insult you for knowing your limits. We will note it. We will see whether those limits move later."

A lanky boy near the aisle raised a timid hand. "What if someone is badly injured," he asked.

"We monitor," Corin said. "We do not hover. If you scream loud enough into one of the station horns, a patrol will find you. Do not test this to see whether the horns are real. They are real."

Fizz leaned close to John’s ear. "I could beat a third-class beast with a spoon."

"Please do not," John whispered.

"They need to know the legend."

"They need to know you can count to ten without setting anything on fire," John said.

Fizz huffed. "Rude and true."

Corin’s gaze sifted the crowd and seemed to pick out every person who had ever thought they were an exception. "Pack tonight. Go in the morning. Do not forget to come back with your bones arranged the way they came. Dismissed."