Chapter 113: 113: The Academy Test XXIII
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At fifty, he gave Edda a nod.
Edda slid a thin hook through the narrow gap under the sash and lifted. The window latch gave a tiny click like a quiet tongue. She waited for the room to argue. It did not. She lifted the sash a hand’s width and stopped. Cool night air came up to meet them. The sleep cloth below gave off one more soft breath and then nothing.
Brann went first. He swung in, toes to the floorboards, weight already spread so the wood would not talk. He paused, listening to the room. The little candle by the stairs outside, the ledger on the tavern woman’s lap, the three chickens out back — none of those lives knew he was here.
Edda handed the bell in. Brann gave it one short, low ring inside the room, away from the beds. The note was barely there. It brushed the glass inside Fizz like a feather. Fizz’s ears twitched once and went slack.
Rusk came next. He set the padded box for the jar on the table and eased the jar out of his sack. The bronze ring on its mouth was dull on purpose. He set the jar a step from Fizz and held it there, waiting for the bell’s work to finish its pass. Then he moved quick and neat: a slow tilt, a short pull, and the jar’s mouth was over Fizz. The ring kissed the air. Runes woke without light. The glass sighed as if it had closed on a warm loaf. Fizz’s glow flickered —one bright coin— and flattened to a faint ember again.
"Spirit contained," Rusk breathed.
Brann touched the blanket at John’s shoulder. No jerk. No face change. The cloth in the room had done its work well — heavy lungs, loose neck, the slow, thick breath of a boy who had trusted a cheap bed for one night too many. Brann did not smile. He did not like this part. He still did it right.
"Hands," he said.
Edda had the copper-thread mesh in both hands already. She unrolled it like a shawl and laid it over John from collarbone to belt, smooth and flat, then under his forearms and back up to clip at the cuffs. The little copper clips kissed the mesh and held. She checked that the weave crossed his chest and ribs in clean lines, not bunching. It didn’t bite. It simply thinned the world inside him.
"Gag," Brann said.
Rusk passed the strip. It was cloth with a rune line stitched in the weave. Brann pressed it across John’s mouth and jaw. The strip hummed once — soft as a bee in a glass. It would take words and make them small. It would let air pass.
"Ankles," Edda said.
Brann nodded. Rusk went low, fast, quiet. Two loops. Two slips. Ankles set. No hard knots — nothing that would leave a mark they’d have to explain later. Edda checked John’s right wrist strap. Then his left wrist. She tightened the left one a notch and checked again. The right looked snug. She missed the half-hair of slack he’d earned by sleeping light all his life.
"Lift," Brann said.
They did not pick him up like a sack. They rolled him to one side, slid a short canvas sling under his back and hips, rolled him back, set him square, then drew the sling’s ears together until the canvas took his weight. Brann took the head end. Edda took the foot end. Rusk lifted the jar into its padded box, tied the lid down, and slung the strap over his shoulder.
"Window," Brann murmured.
Edda eased the sling toward the open sash. Brann took the weight and fed it out to the roof, where a short, silent line waited. Rusk hooked the line to the sling’s iron ring. Brann slipped back out first, bearing the head end high so the sling wouldn’t bump the sill. Edda followed with the feet. In five slow breaths, all three were on the roof again, the sling between them like a stretcher.
No floorboard creaked. No hinge coughed.
Inside the room, the sleep cloth lay quiet by the table. The honey cookie Fizz had saved by the window took a small breath from the night air and rustled once. No one heard it.
On the roof, Rusk took the lead with the jar box. Brann and Edda carried the sling. Brann’s elbows were bent, not stiff—weight on soft muscle so nothing would jerk if a tile spoke. Edda’s steps were the same length she always used on roofs. The old tiles did what old tiles do when they are treated with respect. They kept their stories to themselves.
They crossed to the back eave, the same way they came. Edda went down the wall first, toes to the old bricks, hand to the known chips. She set her boots in the yard without a thud and turned, palms up. Brann fed the sling down. Edda took it. Rusk lowered the jar and followed, light as a cat.
The cat on the shed roof watched with gold coins for eyes. He did not speak. He had seen rats carried this way. He had never seen a boy.
"Gate’s chain?" Rusk whispered.
"Leave it. Wall," Brann breathed.
The back wall was lower behind the shed. They took that side. Brann went up first with the head end of the sling, set one knee on the capstone, and reached back. Edda pushed from below. Rusk steadied the jar. The three became one animal for a moment—up, over, down.
The street was empty. The drunk three doors down snored like a saw. A rat decided not to cross. A cart did not come. The night was the kind of night that lets quiet things finish.
"Cart," Rusk said.
At the end of the lane, a small handcart waited where a dark doorway had hidden it all evening. Rusk had put it there before midnight and turned it so one squeaky wheel faced the wall. He lifted the jar box first and set a folded blanket beside it. Edda and Brann lowered the sling. John lay on the blanket. Brann slid another blanket over him. No more ropes. No big knots. Work clean.
"Net for carry?" Edda asked.
Brann shook his head. "No. Not here."
Rusk took the cart handles. Edda walked ahead, eyes on corners, hands loose. Brann walked behind, one hand on the blanket over John’s shoulder as if he were a patron and not a thief. They moved like evening water: not slow, not fast, not worth a second look to a sleepy street.
They did not take the straight way. They folded the city—two streets over, one down, through a yard where a laundry line had been pulled down for rain, past a shrine stone where someone had left a lemon slice in a bowl. Out to a lane that smelled of old smoke. To a door with old paint.
The abandoned house took them in the way old houses do: with a hollow sound and a memory of being new. John woke up and his memory was a bit blurry. He recalled what just happened.
(John’s point of view.)
A cloth came down over John’s face. It did not smell bad. It smelled like nothing, which was worse. His hands moved, but not fast enough. Copper thread kissed his wrists. A net fell over his shoulders and chest. It did not dig in. It lay like a wet shirt that did not want him to breathe deep. A strip pressed across his mouth and jaw. It hummed when he tried to speak. The hum ate his words.
Three shadows came in.
Fizz’s light snapped awake and then bent, as if someone had turned the world a little. A glass jar rose from a padded cradle. The bronze ring at the mouth of the jar flashed once with a thin line of runes and closed. Fizz’s small voice made one sound, not a word. It faded as if a hand had pushed it under a blanket.
After that he couldn’t remember anything.
(Back to the story.)
John observed everything. He tried to use his magic but he couldn’t. He tried to call out his Black hole palm. But nothing happened. His mouth felt like it was stuck. He couldn’t talk. He asked the system inside his mind, "Hey system, what’s happening?" Why can’t I use any mana?"
Meanwhile, the mesh stayed smooth. The strip over his mouth hummed once when he tried to talk. Edda drew the cuffs snug. Rusk lifted the jar into the cradle. The bronze ring sang to itself —one soft note— and went still.
Brann set the glass jar on the table and tapped it. Tick. Tick. Tick. Fizz didn’t respond.
"Door," he said. "Close it."
Only then did the night begin to move again.
Inside the room, the world became small. The window was blacked out. The air held old dust and a new breath of coal. A chair with iron rings sat on a white circle drawn on the floor. A shelf held a box for the jar. A beam above the chair had two hooks that were not for clothes. A bucket sat in a corner with a ladle across its mouth. A small brazier glowed like a stubborn eye.