Chapter 115: 115: The Academy Test XXV
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The hours made a shape. A ladder with rungs that were too close together. He climbed it with his breath and his counting and the nail head in the beam. When his breath wanted to run, he put it behind his teeth and let it walk. When the metronome tick made him want to throw the chair, he put the chair in his mind and sat down again on it. When the cold ate down his neck he put the cold in a small box that had a lid.
He looked at the chalk ring without moving his eyes. The chalk did not shine. It sat dull under the chair legs. He saw where Rusk had fixed the nick near the back leg. He saw one grain of salt sitting half on the chalk and half on the board. He saw what water would do to that grain if there was water again.
[System: forty-one percent. Secondary nodes are responsive. Fizz threshold not met.]
Fizz slept as if the jar had pressed him flat on the bottom. In his dream he heard a tap. Tick. Tick. Tick. He did not know it was a metronome. He did not know what time was. He felt the pattern anyway. He tried to hum in time. The jar hummed back in the other direction until his little hum canceled itself out. His glow flickered once like a blink in a mirror and went smooth again.
At the middle of the night, the house breathed different, as if other houses were turning in their sleep. Outside, a cart wheel clicked twice on the same loose stone it always clicked on. Brann looked toward the door at the first click and counted to the second and relaxed, just a little.
John watched the jar bracket. Each time a boot crossed one floorboard near the shelf, the bracket answered with a small creak. Old wood keeps score, he thought without words. He did not smile. His jaw did not ask for that.
Edda pressed the top of his left shoulder again. Eight beats on. Six off. Eight on. His left hand tried to shake the ache out. It could not. He kept it still. He put the ache across the room. He put it on the nail head with the scratch in it. He let the nail hold it for him.
Brann checked the net at John’s hip. One copper thread had a little curl that did not sit flat. He smoothed it and clipped it again. He did not see that the curl had left a small memory in the weave. Copper remembers hands.
Rusk opened the shutter a finger’s width and shut it again. "Still dark," he said softly. "Still ours." He put the ladle into the bucket and poured a small circle of water under the chair to settle dust. The water went where water goes. It found the chalk. It found the grain of salt that sat half on the line and half on the board. It kissed it. The grain melted from salt to water and walked away. Rusk did not look at his own feet. He did not see the thin white line break at the back leg.
[System: fifty-eight percent. Dampening ring interference rising per re-trace. Recommend the host must have patience.]
John was patient. He had learned patience in a pond when he was twelve and the sky was a lid. He had learned a different kind of patience in a white house where names were keys and he had not been given one. He knew how to count slow. He knew how to wait while he felt his lungs want to hurry. He put his anger into a coal and kept it alive. He would use it later. Not now.
The jar creaked once more. The bracket groaned like a step in a hall. Fizz rolled in the dream he was stuck in. His ears twitched inside the glass. He could not wake. He could feel one thing only: the way John’s breath changed. He matched it for two heartbeats before the jar smoothed him again.
Rusk yawned without sound and rubbed his eye. "This one’s a rock," he said.
"Rocks break," Brann said. He was not boasting. He was telling the clock a story it liked to hear.
"Some rocks split the hammer," Edda said without looking up. She did not say which she thought he was.
An hour later, Edda set the wax aside. The coal in the brazier had gone to dull red. She did not feed it. She put the spoon in the bucket to cool. She took the rag from the corner and wiped the table clean, as if cleaning mattered. For her, it did.
Brann left the room for two minutes and came back and said, "Clear." He checked the window board. He checked the lock. He checked the door again. He kept the picture of the house in his head, all three floors, which steps talk, which do not, which neighbors wake for water and which for drink.
[System: seventy-three percent. Dampening ring integrity down six percent. Continue.]
John’s wrists had time in them now. The cord had warmed and pulled into itself. The right strap had a half millimeter slack it had not had before. He rolled his wrist inside it the width of a hair and set it back flat so the leather would not notice. He did it again a minute later. He did not hurry. He did not think of knives. He thought of knots.
He watched the shelf bracket. If that bracket cracked, the jar would not fall to the floor. It would tilt. It would slide the width of its cradle and stop. But a tilt would shake the jar. A shake might ring the bronze. A ring might wake a spirit that was almost awake. He did not ask for it. He waited to see if the house would give him that gift on its own.
Time moved to the last bend.
Brann said, "Pack in one hour." He lifted the net that would cover John’s head and chest for the carry and tested the throw so it would land without a slap. He had done it a hundred times. His hands did not shake.
Edda checked the strap at John’s left wrist and tightened it a notch. She checked the right wrist. The right wrist looked tight. It was not. The leather did what leather does when it is asked the same thing too many times in one night: it answered late. She did not hear the answer. She put her palm near John’s shoulder to judge whether he was about to try something stupid. His mind was calm. She could not read his eyes because he had covered them with that nail head and set a door between.
Rusk wet a cloth to swap on the gag strip before they moved him. The wet cloth drooped and tapped the floor by accident. A small drip walked under the chair and into the last clean salt along the chalk. The chalk line broke there the way ice breaks when the first hairline draws itself across the pond. Rusk did not see it. Rusk was thinking about the runner who would be late if he did not move his feet.
The house made three small sounds in one breath: the jar bracket gave a long creak, the copper mesh near John’s right hip lifted half a hair, and the chair’s back leg slid a quarter grain in the damp.
In his head, the clean voice from the system spoke again. It did not rush. It did not sing. It said,
[Ding! System notification- Mana veins: ninety-eight percent restored. Flow re-route complete. Dampening effect reduced by twelve percent. Spirit contract bond re-link was ready at sixty percent. Activation in... one minute.]
John took one breath in. He let it go slow. He felt the right wrist strap warm from his skin. He rolled his wrist that same hair’s width and found the edge of a copper thread not lying flat on his skin. He lifted his heel and put it back. He did not look at the jar where Fizz was. He did not look at the door. His eyes stayed on the three enemies. His mouth did not move.
On the shelf, Fizz’s glow pulsed twice, small as a heart in a wall. Fizz was awake. He was seeing everyone and everything. He was getting ready to beat the shit out of the three enemies.
Brann went to the door and listened down the stairs. Rusk checked the window board and slid the bolt with two fingers. Edda watched John’s manly man part, not his face or his chest. She didn’t even look at John’s hands.
The air in the small room seemed to pull toward John’s open palm even though his hand was empty.
The system voice came one last time. It was as soft as a page turning.
[Ding! System notification- Mana veins: ninety-nine... one hundred percent. Activation of mana vain in... 00:01 seconds.]