Void Lord: My Revenge Is My Harem

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They stepped out of Snake's office into the long top – floor hall where the stone held the day's heat like a low, friendly fire. The windows glowed orange. Dust hung in the light, slow and calm. Far below, a bell in some other building counted the hour with a tired voice and then went quiet again, as if even bells like to rest after work.

Master Hale walked them to the stair with her hands folded behind her back. Master Venn walked beside John with his chalk tucked away at last, as if even chalk should sleep before it was asked to draw again.

"One day later… At dawn," Hale said, "you will report to the east steps. Not the west. The west steps lead to the kitchens and trouble. The east steps lead to classrooms and a headache, which is better than trouble."

Venn added, dry as ever, "If you see a door that says No First Years, believe the door. Doors do not lie at this academy. People do."

Fizz saluted with a paw. "Understood. Respect doors. Distrust people. I was born for this rule."

Hale's mouth twitched, which, for her, was nearly a laugh. She nodded once to John. "We will see what you do with a proper day," she said, and then she and Venn took the crossing stair and were gone.

John and Fizz descended alone. The stair curved around a round shaft full of cool air. The smell of chalk and wax and paper faded; the smell of evening came up to meet them—fried onions from the cook lanes, damp stone from shadowed courts, the clean thread of river wind that always found a way through any city if you let it.

Fizz drifted backwards so he could look at John's face. "Well," he said, full of light and mystery. "A day."

John kept his eyes on the steps. "What did he ask you to do," he asked, simple.

Fizz put a paw to his chest. "Me? Oh, many things. Important things. Secret things. Things that require… panache."

John looked up at him. He did not smile. "What kind of things?"

Fizz tried to widen his eyes until they were all pupils and innocent. "Do not ask. It is a surprise. I am a surprise. The job is a surprise. Life is a surprise. Why spoil it?"

"You said the word teaching," John said, mildly, like a man testing a knife with one finger.

Fizz flailed. "No! Teacher? Me? You heard wrong. I said teachers. Plural. I said the teachers look hungry. For knowledge. Which is normal for teachers. I would never say I am a teacher. Look at me. Do I look like a teacher? Teachers wear long coats and carry long faces. I am far too round and overwhelmed by cuteness."

John's brow rose a fraction. "You are very round," he agreed. His tone gave nothing away. "So not a teacher."

Fizz nodded so hard he bobbed. "Not a teacher. Absolutely not a teacher. I will certainly not stand in front of small people and tell them how the world works while they gasp at my wisdom and ask for snacks. That is a ridiculous picture. Throw it away."

John looked back down at the steps. Inside, a small smile tried to climb up his throat and did not make it to his mouth. "Fizz is not a teacher," he told himself. "Fizz would set the blackboard on fire by trying to show why fire and air are friends. I heard wrong. I was tired. The day was long. Whatever the job is, he will tell me when he is ready." He did not press. He had learned, long ago, the value of letting some threads sit until they want to be pulled.

They reached the ground floor. The big hall beyond the wide doors was mostly empty now. A few late students hurried with papers held tight, shoes soft on stone. A custodian pushed a wheeled bucket and left a thin wet line that gleamed like a small river. The lamps along the walls came alive one by one with quiet little pops.

They stepped out into the front court. The trees there held the last light of the day in their leaves like coins. The air was the kind that knows a story is ending and another one is beginning in the same breath.

"Ready," Fizz said, sticking his nose up. "We leave on a regular day. We enter the city of bad people. We are not officially part of the Heart magic academy." He took a deep breath. "Ah. We need good people. Honest people in our life."

John adjusted the strap of his small bag and checked, without looking like he was checking, that his new slate token was still in the inner pocket. It was. He touched it with two fingers the way some men touch a prayer and then let the coat fall back into place.

They crossed the court. The south gate stood open. The guards there were different than this morning's, but their faces had the same shape: calm, eyes wide enough to see more than a man should say out loud, hands quiet. One of them watched Fizz with the twitch of a smile. The other one watched John the way a blacksmith watches a new tool — measuring weight, wondering what job it will prefer.

Fizz waved like a visiting prince. "Good gate. Excellent hinges. Ten out of ten."

The guard did not bow; he did not roll his eyes; he did not answer. He was a professional. But his mouth remembered how to be amused for half a second.

They walked under the stone arch and out into the city again. Evening had moved a step. The street was not crowded now. It was not empty either. It was that hour when work and supper shake hands and trade places. Smoke drew straight lines from kitchens. Voices were low and full. A dog with one ear looked both ways and then crossed like a citizen.

At the end of the lane, the academy walls curved away and the city went on being itself. John turned toward the Bent Penny without thinking; his feet remembered. He was already making a list in his head — bread, oil for the hinge in their room, a look at the route to the east steps by night — when Fizz bumped his cheek with a soft paw.

"What," John said.

Fizz floated closer and made the shape of a cup with both paws. "We will celebrate. With soup. Rich soup. Soup that tells stories about cows."

"After we get inside," John said. His eyes were on the edges now. The line inside his chest had begun to hum the way it did when a street had more than street in it. "We do not celebrate in an empty street."

Fizz followed his gaze automatically, then made himself laugh. "Paranoia makes you live longer," he said. "I prefer you long."

John said nothing. He did not speed up. He did not slow. He did what the safe do: he looked like a man who had no reason to feel unsafe.

They reached the corner where the academy wall ended and the wide market street began. Lanterns came alive over stalls. The smell of a fry pan walked out into the lane and greeted passersby like a friendly dog. A woman argued with a man in an old coat about the price of plums; both were laughing by the time a coin changed hands.

They slipped into the flow and then out again, near the curb, where a man can move fast if he needs to. They passed the square with the one – hand clock. It pointed at the place between day and not – day. The sky had that pale green that happens only when the sun is not sure whether to go.

They were not the only ones who had watched for that color.

(Situation of the kidnapers…)

Across the street from the academy gate, pressed into the shallow pocket between a fishmonger's shutter and a barber's sign, three people waited like knots in wood.

Brann stood upright, coat smooth, face down, hands in pockets. He did not lean. He did not fidget. He was the kind of man who could be a shadow without pretending to be one. He watched the gate and counted the exits again in his mind for the tenth time because that is what men do when they want to live long in his work.

Edda had her shoulder against the wall a pace behind him. Her braid was tighter now. She had changed her shirt and burned the old one in a bucket behind a bakery. She still smelled faintly of smoke. It suited her. She watched the flow of students with the cool eye of a butcher choosing which animal will walk through the door next.

Rusk crouched like a sack of potatoes that wanted to run. He wore trousers that were not his trousers and a tunic that was not his tunic. Someone's washline on someone's yard had been lighter after he passed and stole the clothes. He tugged at the waist as if the cloth were plotting against him. He had tied a rope around it, but the rope did not trust him either.