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They turned into the dining hall and were swallowed by heat and chatter. Long tables ran like lanes in a field. Banners drifted in the draft. The air smelled of peppered stew, fresh bread, and the sincere terror of vegetables.

Everywhere, first-years reenacted the class with frantic hands, making tiny circles in the air like they could catch the warmth again. Upper-years tried to be bored about it and failed.

From a shadowed corner table, Ray Flame sat alone, a swaggering slouch that looked dented. His coat was good cloth and bad food choices. He hunched over a plate he wasn't eating.

Fizz tapped John's shoulder with one paw. "There. Mushroom Cheeks. We dine with him."

"Why," John asked, already suspecting the answer.

"Because friendship is a ladder and also because the cute red-ribbon girl is in his orbit. We stand near him and the ladder leans toward her." Fizz puffed up. "I pick good girls for you. She smells like cinnamon and danger. Also she hides sweets in her sleeve. You know that. I like her sweets."

"You are impossible," John said. "Food first. Then we can rescue Ray from his own personality."

At the counter, a cook slid them heavy plates. John took stew, bread, and a sane amount of greens. Fizz selected four pastries, a bowl of custard, a tower of honeyed squares, and a token carrot stick for moral superiority. He glared at the carrot until it regretted existing.

They crossed to Ray's table. The noble jerked, as if he had been prepared to be alone forever and someone had ruined his plan.

John set his tray. Fizz set his sugar mountain and regarded Ray like a general judging a fort's walls.

For a few breaths no one spoke. The hall's noise filled the gaps: clatter of crockery, a burst of laughter, the faint chant of "Anchor, shape, feed, listen," like a superstition people liked the taste of.

Fizz finally sighed grandly. "You, Ray the mushroom cheeks," he said, pointing to a fork with a square of honey flapping off it. "From this glorious evening forward you may bask in my general vicinity as a follower. It will lend your life a sheen. Later you can tell your descendants you once ate near greatness."

Ray's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "You are now a guest professor," he said slowly, like he was testing the words for poison. "I am not arguing with a teacher at dinner."

"Wise," Fizz said. "Also boring. But wise."

Ray tilted his chin at John. "That poor-looking human is your — what. Handler. Master. Your student. Or your Owner. I do not know the proper noun for a spirit with a teacher job."

"I am his… Fizz is my contract," John said evenly. "And his friend."

Ray's eyes skated away as if that was complicated. He stabbed at his stew as if it had insulted him. "Suppose I accept you as my wing man," he told Fizz, attempting swagger from the bottom of a well. "What would you do. The trouble I have cannot be fixed unless a duke or the crown sneezes in my direction."

Fizz took an enormous bite of pastry and spoke around it with perfect clarity. "Royal sneeze is overrated. Tell me your nonsense and I will apply wisdom. I have many flavors of it."

"No," Ray said. The word arrived tired. "It is not your business."

Fizz leaned in, eyes bright. "Everything is my business until I decide it is not. Tell me about your problems."

John put a hand on Fizz's shoulder. "Let him be," he said. "We have plenty of our own troubles. Ray — if you need something I can actually do, ask. If not, eat."

Ray glanced between them. The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a sneer, not quite a thank-you. He started eating in hard, short motions like someone trying to convince food and mouth to be allies.

Around them, the hall's swells and dips of noise made a tide to talk against. Two first-years argued about whether Orne had really warmed the air. A taller girl swore her partner had nearly floated; her partner swore she had merely shifted her weight because of a pebble and would punch anyone who said otherwise.

A knot of upper-years planned to sit in the next open class to see if the talking orange fluff would insult them personally. The League of Fizz huddled near the railing and whispered about new bylaws, including mandatory spark autographs on exam slates.

Fizz ate his way through sugar country with ferocious diplomacy. John steadied his own hunger and scanned the room for a familiar face. No Sera. He had not seen her since the party, and his mind had made three foolish guesses for every sensible one.

"I will find her after," he said.

Fizz thumped his chest with a paw sticky with honey. "I will get you married to many ribbons girls one day. For now I will get sweets from the same region."

John raised his brows. "You are not getting me married to anyone."

"Then I will be the best thing at your harem," Fizz said. "And also eat cake while I watch you do things."

Ray snorted once despite himself. He wiped it away with a scowl, then gave up on the scowl and just looked tired.

They ate in an awkward peace that was, after the last few days, not the worst kind of quiet. Fizz's mountain dwindled. John's plate emptied. The carrot stick met its fate and was declared unworthy of memory.

On their way out, they passed a table of older students. One of them — broad-shouldered, a face like a thumb that had survived many doors — leaned toward Ray as they went by and murmured something edged. Ray's jaw tightened. He did not answer. He stared at his cup until it stopped being water and started being something he could stare at without blinking.

Fizz veered, murder in his whiskers. John caught him by the scruff. "Later," he said.

Fizz vibrated in place like a kettle just before it sings. "Fine. But I am writing his name in my book of people who need a small localized disaster."

They stepped into the cooler corridor. Night pressed against stained glass, turning colored stories into dark shapes. Ray fell in behind them without being asked, not quite with them and not quite not.

"Classes in the morning," John said, to say something normal. "Do not miss them."

"I know how school works," Ray muttered.

"Good," Fizz said. "Because I will be inspecting your notes. If you draw mushrooms I will be furious."

Ray's voice floated from behind. "Why would I draw mushrooms."

"Your cheeks are mushrooms," Fizz said, scandalized that this had to be explained.

They climbed the stair to East House. Their footsteps made a rhythm that was almost companionable. Fizz narrated it. "Left, right, try not to trip, think about cake, do not think about cake, stairs do not bite, unless Snake was right, but he was probably making a metaphor, I will bite the stairs if they bite you."

A yawning warden passed in the hall and gave them the professional glance used on first-years after curfew: "Are you where you should be."

They were. She looked briefly disappointed that she could not assign them a chore and moved on.

At the door to their room, Fizz produced the key John had not seen him steal. John gave him a look. Fizz looked innocently at the ceiling dome and whistled a tune that sounded like a guilty chair.

Inside, the room was neat with the defensive neatness of people trying to pretend they controlled their lives. Two beds made, one bed that looked like a storm had slept there and chewed the pillow. Ray walked to that bed without a word and flopped onto it like a felled tree. He turned his face into the blanket. For a moment John thought he had passed out. Then he spoke, voice muffled.

"Did you forget about our truce?" he said. "Do not talk to me. I will not talk to you. We have too many talks already."

Fizz planted his paws on his hips. "You want it that way?"

Ray did not move. "I am asking for a favour."

John put his belt on the chair, slid the bolt that kept the door honest, and blew out the lamp with a careful breath. The room fell into the kind of quiet where dust remembers it is dust.

"All right," John said into the dark. "Truce will remain. Just like we talked."

Fizz hopped onto his pillow and arranged himself into a vibrant comma. "Temporary truce," he amended. "I reserve the sidekick's position for you. Soon you beg me and John to join."

No one argued. Cause no one listen to Fizz.

From somewhere in the far courtyard a night bird tried a few notes and then gave up. The building exhaled one of those old-wood sighs that means it has seen worse than you and is willing to see you too. John lay back and let the day unwind. Fizz's gentle snore began to saw the air into soft strips.

On the next bed, Ray Flame pretended to hate everything and everyone until the pretense tired him out, and sleep pulled the room even.

Outside, the academy kept its lamps polite and its secrets busy.

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