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John glanced at him. "That sounds exhausting."
Fizz grinned. "For you, yes."
They walked back toward East House, toward their room, toward Ray Fla’s bed that always looked like it had been slept in by a storm. The corridor slled faintly of chalk and soap.
John’s hand brushed the permit in his pocket once, a small touch to reassure himself it was real.
He did not feel arrogant. He felt responsible.
And for the first ti since the White House had thrown him away, he felt like he was building sothing that could not be taken by a single cruel decision.
Fizz floated ahead and declared, loud enough for a passing student to hear, "Attention everyone, my disciple has acquired secret authority. Please line up to be impressed."
John grabbed him gently by the tail fluff and pulled him back.
Fizz squeaked. "Assault. Oppression. Tyranny."
John kept walking. "Quiet."
Fizz sighed dramatically. "Fine. I will be quietly impressed."
They disappeared into the crowd of corridors, one boy with a hidden void and one loud spirit with a very public ego, carrying a small piece of tal that ant John could leave the academy when he needed to.
Outside these walls, the capital waited.
A few days passed the way storms pass when the sky is tired of drama. The academy kept ringing bells. Teachers kept pretending chalk was a sacred substance. Ray kept acting like his bed was a battlefield he had heroically survived. Fizz kept collecting admirers like a magnet collecting nails and then complaining that the nails were not edible.
John kept his head down in public and his plans alive in private.
That was the difference now. He had a pass in his inner pocket that did not look like power, but felt like it. Quiet permission. Quiet doors. Quiet exits. If he used it correctly, no one would clap. No one would cheer. No one would even notice.
That was exactly what he wanted.
On the day he chose, he left the academy without fanfare. The exit gate read his permit, humd once like a grumpy old guard who hated paperwork, and let him through. The city swallowed him fast. Cobblestones, spice slls, carriage wheels, shop bells, a thousand conversations happening at once like the capital had never learned to take turns.
Fizz floated beside him wearing the expression of a creature who believed every street existed to applaud him.
"You feel it," Fizz whispered. "This is where comrce lives. I can sll the ambition. Also cinnamon. But mostly ambition."
John did not answer. He was watching corners. Watching reflections in windows. Listening for the footstep that did not match the rest. The city was full of eyes and he had learned that eyes did not always belong to heads you could trust.
They reached the shop by noon.
From the outside it looked like what it was ant to look like. Modest. Forgettable. A narrow front with a simple sign that did not scream for attention. A door that opened and closed like any other door. A small window that could show goods later without showing too much now. Nothing about it advertised that a Duke’s daughter had handed it over on paper like she was giving away a spoon.
Inside, it was empty in the way new places always were. Empty walls. Empty shelves. Empty air.
But it did not feel dead.
It felt like a lung that had not taken its first breath yet.
John shut the door behind them and leaned his forehead to the wood for a mont, letting the silence settle. The house portion behind the shop slled faintly of old plaster and sun. There were two small rooms and a narrow stair. The forge space in the back was cramped but honest, with a vent line running upward and a stone floor ant to survive heat.
Fizz spun once in midair like a dancer who had found a stage. "This is ours," he said reverently. "Say it again. Say it with reverence. Say it with my na."
"Our shop," John said.
Fizz nodded. "Yes. But also mine. Spiritually. Emotionally. Economically."
John crossed to the back room where the forge space waited. He set down the pack of supplies he had carried from the academy. The mont his fingers left the straps, he felt the familiar shift inside his chest. The void line was calm. The circle three line was steady. Everything in him felt like it was sitting properly in its seat.
He had co here for one purpose.
To build sothing.
He pulled a slate from his pocket and laid it on a clean patch of stone. Not the academy permit. Not today. This slate was blank. He had brought it because he liked the ritual of marking new work. It made the work feel real.
Fizz hovered lower. His ears tilted forward. "Is it ti," he whispered, as if speaking louder might startle the concept.
John nodded once.
Then he did what he never did in public.
He spoke to the thing only he could hear.
System.
The answer ca smoothly, as if it had already been waiting in the room.
[Ding! System Notification- Workshop function detected.
Environntal stability: acceptable.
Crafting support: available.]
John exhaled. He did not let his face change. Fizz was watching him closely but Fizz did not know what he was watching. To Fizz, John was simply becoming focused, the way he did before fights and before hard decisions and before pretending he was fine.
John set his hands on the stone floor and let his mana spread out like a net. It was not a spell taught in Basic Magic Theory. It was not a class technique. It was sothing he had unlocked in pieces, through missions and brutal necessity and the system’s cold guidance.
A faint shimr touched the floor.
Lines ford.
Not chalk. Not ink. Light that looked like it had been cut from the moon and then taught to behave. The lines drew themselves into a rectangle, then a second rectangle, then a set of interlocking circles that sat inside the first shapes like gears inside a clock.
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