Chapter 116: 116: The Academy Test XXVI
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Brann stood by the door, a long shadow that did not waste steps. Edda leaned a hip on the table, rolling a knife in her fingers without looking at it. Rusk watched the spirit jar as if a mouse might try to lift its own lid. The bronze ring held a slow quiet note. Fizz slept inside like an ember under glass.
Somewhere in the city, a tower took a breath and let a single bell fall into the dawn.
First bell.
Brann’s head tilted. "We move on the second," he said. Calm. Professional.
Edda smirked at John’s quiet eyes. "Don’t worry, boy," she said. "You’ll live to hand over. They paid for breathing."
Rusk poked the jar with a knuckle and whispered, "Ugly little lantern."
The metronome kept counting everyone’s patience.
[System: Mana flow restoration complete. Core access: partial → full. Peripheral binds: copper interference detected. Recommend: micro-field, low radius, low draw.]
John did not jerk. He did not test the ropes. He did not give them the show they wanted. He drew one slow breath and split it in his chest: half up to calm his heart, half down to touch the dark, steady ring that had waited for him all night. The second circle answered like a door opened for a friend.
He made the field small. A coin’s width. Then two. A cup-saucer. It hovered between his palm and the underside of the mesh—no bigger than a fist—so close the copper almost kissed it.
The air bent in a thin, even sheet. Threads of copper twitched as if they had remembered how to itch.
The gag-strip thrummed against his molars, picking up the same low note. John let the note grow one more hair. Not big. Not loud. Enough.
A single weft-wire in the mesh plinked. Another plinked. They did not snap like strings. They gave like old hair.
Edda’s eyes narrowed. She did not move yet. "Brann," she said softly.
Brann did not come closer. "Hands," he said to her. "Check."
Edda stepped in and pressed her thumb on John’s right wrist strap. Tight. She pressed the left.
The left strap crept a whisper under her thumb. She frowned. She went to tighten it.
John moved.
Not big. Not wild. A half-turn of the wrist, a half-turn of the palm, and the small dark field rolled like a marble under the mesh. It caught three copper threads at once, dragged them over the chair arm, and bit them against the wood. The weft gave with a flat tch.
Edda swore and reached for the clip. "Mesh!"
Brann sprang off the door and slashed a chalk mark in the air. "Hold!"
White lines jumped like low strings across John’s lap—good, fast spellwork. The dark field pressed them and they sang, but they held.
Rusk lunged to the jar box like a man saving a baby from a cat and slapped his hand on the lid. "Stay," he hissed at the glass.
John turned his wrist again. The freed strip of copper slid up his forearm. He curled the small field into his palm and pinched the gag’s edge where the rune-thread lay. The hum stuttered. He rolled his jaw once. The cloth loosened enough for teeth.
He bit, tore, spat cloth, and breathed.
"Bad morning," he said, voice dry. "You chose the wrong boy."
Edda grinned despite herself. "I like him," she said.
Brann did not. He stepped, quick and neat, and drove a palm of packed air at John’s shoulder—circle-three work, flat and hard. John let the field widen to the size of a plate and tilted it. The blow slid off like rain from oiled leather and shattered a chair leg instead. Wood split. The metronome staggered and fell.
The second bell rolled across rooftops.
Rusk’s eyes flicked to the sound the way a dog looks at a whistle. "Time," he said.
"Finish it," Brann snapped.
Edda snapped the knife forward, a short throw, handle-first, not to cut but to stunned-bruise. John dipped his shoulder and the handle kissed air. He threw his palm out—no bigger than a pumpkin now—and pulled.
The jar did not fly. The bronze ring did not help. The table skated two inches and the chair lurched. Rusk squawked as the box slid toward the edge.
"Don’t drop it!" Edda barked, now angry.
Fizz felt the change in pressure like a paw stepping on his tail. He opened one eye in the dark and said into the glass, small and mean, "If you shake me again, I will teach your shoes to scream."
Rusk jumped. "It talked—"
"Bell," Brann snapped. "Ring the bell."
Edda snatched the soft-bell from the shelf and shook it once. The note slipped into the jar like a finger into a cup.
Fizz shut his eyes on purpose. "I hate that bell," he hissed. He did not fall asleep—it only pressed him low, like a heavy blanket he could not kick off.
John saw the droop and went from calm to cold in one blink. He set the field hard, tore the last three weft wires, ripped the mesh up and off his chest, and flung it at Brann’s spell-lines. Copper met chalk. White met brown. Both spat and died.
Brann drew a circle, fast and neat. He did not need chalk; some men wear their circles on their bones. "Down," he snapped.
The floor under John’s boots sank like wet clay. His ankle ropes bit as his calves dropped to the knee. He wrenched, rolled his hips, and the chair tipped with him. He took the fall on his shoulder and used it. The back post cracked and let his arms slip. He spun on his side, jerked, and the right strap blew free.
Edda was already there with the loop-throw. The rope flowered in the air. John threw the field low and wide. The rope’s weight bent toward it and hit the floor.
"Stop playing," Brann said, low. He slashed his hand down. The old joists groaned. A line in the ceiling flexed.
John’s palm drank. The pull stung in his wrist. His second ring woke to the work and held.
He rolled onto a knee, planted his left hand, and sent the field at the jar. Not to smash. To tilt.
Rusk, suddenly wise, hugged the box to his chest. "Mine," he said.
"Not today," John said.
He pulled—not at the box, at Rusk’s belt buckle. The metal skidded. Rusk’s pants sagged. He yelped, grabbed at himself, and the box tipped.
Fizz’s voice sharpened from inside the glass. "Oh look, gravity found a brain."
John reached, pressed the field flat, and let it be a glove. The jar slid off the table into the dark palm and did not break.
Edda started for it. John rolled up with jar-in-palm, hit the edge of the table with his hip, and swept the jar behind him out of reach.
"Fizz," he said, low.
Fizz’s eyes blinked open. "Finally," he said, furious and bright.
Rusk grabbed for the jar again. John flicked his wrist. The field dropped a bowl of air between Rusk’s hands and glass. His fingers closed on nothing. He swore. It sounded like he had run out of new words.
Brann brought both hands up. The floor-beams answered. Old nails rose out of wood with a sound like teeth. They leapt at John in a bright, ugly cough.
John’s palm ate the first six. The seventh nicked his cheek. He did not blink. He pulled again and the rest fell flat as if they had been embarrassed to fly.
Edda came from the side with a short baton and a little smile. "Sleep, prince," she said, and cracked it toward his temple.
Fizz hit her in the face with a blinding flash the size of a spoon and the sound a spark makes when it feels famous. "Eyes on your paper," he yelled.
Edda cursed as if light had personally insulted her childhood. The baton smashed the metronome instead. Tick. Tick— crack —silence.
The third bell rolled through the rafters of the city. Far. Closer. The morning was waking like a slow, big cat.
John heard it. His breath counted behind it. "We have to go," he said.
Rusk spat. "You’re not going anywhere."
"And you’re not getting a tip," Fizz shot back. "Your service is terrible."
Brann drew another shape midair—two angles and a hook—and threw it like a hammer. It hit John’s shoulder. Pain came bright. The field wobbled then held. The jar did not fall. Fizz grinned through the glass at Brann. "Nice chalk, grandpa. Did a school sell you that."
"Fizz," John warned.
"What," Fizz said. "I am being helpful."
"Less helpful," John said.
Brann stepped to cut him off from the door. "Edda. Rusk."
They moved how trained people move: one low, one high, both at once. John let the jar down into the crook of his arm and shot the field down at his own boots. The pull yanked him into a skid under Edda’s swing. He slid between them, came up inside Rusk’s reach, and bumped the jar rim to Rusk’s brow with the softest possible thunk.