Chapter 109: 109: The Academy Test XIX
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The sheet was too cool. His skin kept remembering the heat inside the cloth. The soft rip of the seam replayed in his ear. He felt again the air on his hip, the mocking faces, the quiet ring of laughter that never got loud because good rooms do not shout. That was the worst part. The soft sound. Like knives in velvet.
His mind slid to the yard. The mud on his pride. The little orange beast laughing at him. The black round thing on the peasant’s hand. That was the heart of it. The thing that pulled at light. The way dust had lifted. The way a leaf had trembled. He had not planned for that shape. Water he knew. Fire, wind, stone, he knew. The quiet pull, he did not. It sat now in his head like a heavy coin you cannot spend and cannot swallow.
He told himself, "He hid his last name at registration. He lied to the clerk. Everyone got a last name." That helped. It gave him one true wrong to hold.
He told himself again, "Void is unsafe in a yard." That helped more. It gave him a rule to lean on.
He counted doors. Master Hale. Master Venn. The Discipline Board. Cousin Varne. He counted favors. He counted men who liked coin more than clean hands. He counted the stones on the south road past the tax line where a cart breaks if you do not know where the hole is. He counted, and while he counted, the room felt less tall.
"When he fails," he thought, "the jokes die. If he passes, the jokes grow teeth." The thought was simple and true. It set the work.
He would go early tomorrow and stand where people talk but do not write. He would pour careful words into careful ears. Void. Risk. Donors. Tradition. He would not say fear. He would let others say it for him.
He would ask Varne to walk him near Master Hale after chapel. Not to push —Hale did not bend— but to ask questions where other ears could hear. He would ask if a void boy could be placed alone in a room, for safety. Alone means less eyes. That means low scores with some coins. He smiled once in the dark, a small hard line.
He would send a note to a cousin in the bursar’s wing to check the staff list. Who cleans the south yard. Who unlocks the west corridor. Names make doors open.
He would tell his steward to find men who wait at the road. Not thieves. Not loud. Men who take work and never tell stories about it. The assassin. Two would be enough. Three would be safe.
He would learn the test paths. Aqua always learned paths. If a door could be made to stick, it would stick. If a rope could fall, it would fall. If a cart could stop in the wrong place at the right hour, it would stop. No law would see a hand on it.
He would change laundresses for a month and burn every old cloth. He would not wear that shade of blue again this week. He would laugh first at breakfast. He would choose who to sit with. You can steer a rumor by choosing a table.
He thought again of the line he had heard: "Be kind." It made him angry in a new way. He did not want their kindness. He wanted their silence. He wanted their fear.
He closed his eyes. The jokes did not stop. "Postage stamp." "Travel size." "Inventory shrinkage." They walked in and out of his head like small bold cats. He tried to drown them with water in his mind. He pictured a clean flood washing the hall, washing the fans, washing the boys who laughed. He pictured the orange beast caught in a clear sphere, nose pressed to glass. He pictured the peasant boy’s hand empty. He pictured the black thing gone.
His breath slowed. The anger cooled to a hard coin. He put the coin away on a shelf inside his mind. He could spend it later.
"Not in the yard," he told himself. "Not where the masters watch." He tasted the next part before he said it. "On the road before the written exam."
He turned once more on the pillow and found a place where the jokes sounded a little farther away. He held that place. He thought of the exam gate, the long line, the way names are called, and how a man can make a name wait or missing.
He whispered, "I will not be mocked."
In the other bed, his friend breathed slow and even. In the hall, a floorboard creaked the way old wood does when it thinks about settling. Fartray’s eyes shut at last. The last thing in his head was not a joke. It was the dark round shape on a poor boy’s palm, and the way it had pressed the air. He wrote a promise over it in his mind, neat and small and sharp.
Then he slept. The promise did not.
The next day morning came clear and bright. The city woke with clean sounds. Carts rolled. Water ran in gutters. Bells talked to each other from roof to roof. In the Aqua family house, a steward buttoned his coat and set his face like a door. He did not like this job. He would still do it.
He took the back stair, crossed the side yard, and left by a small gate. No crest on his cloak. No bright blue. Plain gray. He walked away from the wide streets and went where the cobbles were not even. The air changed. The clean smell faded. Spice and coal and old beer came in.
He went to a narrow place in the city called by many names and none kind. Some people said Knife Alley. Some said Spindle Row. Some called it the Dark Market because no one lit lanterns there unless the coin asked for light. The steward’s feet did not slip. He knew where to step. He had been here before for other matters which wanted quiet hands.
A painted door with chipped green paint waited for him between a cobbler’s hole and a stall that sold knives without handles. He knocked twice, then once. A small square slid open. A pair of gray eyes looked out.
"Business," the steward said.
The square shut. The door opened. A short hall led to a back room with a low table and three stools. A man with a deep scar across his chin sat on one stool. He was not old. He had the calm of men who move often and are never late. Two others stood in the shadow behind him. They had that same calm in smaller sizes.
"You bring the job," the scared man said. His voice was even. He was careful with words the way some men are careful with knives.
"I bring a commission," the steward said. "Delivery, not death."
The scarred man’s mouth bent at one corner. "We are not a market for boys with broken hearts," he said. "Say it plain. Targets. Price. Terms."
The steward did not look away. "A boy named John. No family name. About seventeen. Circle two by my count, but filed as one. He has a contracted spirit. Small. Orange. Talks. It calls itself Fizz. You will catch both. You will not kill. You will deliver them to my hands, breathing. No missing limbs. No broken spine. No deep cuts. Bruises are fine. Scars are not."
The man in the shadow on the left gave a small laugh at "talks," then shut it down at a glance from the scarred one.
The scarred man lifted his chin. "Payment."
"Two gold coins," the steward said. "One now. One on delivery."
The scarred man tapped the table with one finger. "Two gold for live delivery with a spirit is low if the spirit bites."
"One gold coin is one hundred silvers," the steward said, as if the room had forgotten. "Two gold is two hundred. You will not have to run to another roof. You will not have to fight guards. You will not have to hide a body. Two gold is fair."
The scarred man watched his eyes. Then he nodded. "Two gold is fair for breathing cargo."
The steward set a small leather purse on the table. It didn’t make a soft, heavy sound. The scarred man untied it and glanced inside. He did not count. There was only one coin inside. He closed the purse and slid it into his coat.
"Three people," the steward said. "Send three. The boy’s magic is not like fire or stone. It pulls. It eats everything it touches. I do not want to hear you skimming and then asking for more coins because you were fools at the door."
"We are not fools at doors," the scarred man said. He pointed over his shoulder, still not looking back. "Rusk. Edda. Both circle two. I am in circle three. I will go. Three is enough."