---
Somewhere in the middle of the third hour, the system hummed in his head:
[System Alert: Mana 25%.]
John set the crate he was lifting back down at once and closed the void with care. He leaned his shoulder against the cool wall and breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, counting in fours, letting the well refill a little from the slow refill that never stops in a living body.
Fizz, who had been mid-verse in his third song ("Rag That Wanted to Be a Flag"), cut himself off at once. "We pause," he said, serious again. He ferried the water cup to John and held it there like a cupbearer in a palace.
John drank, slow. He waited until the tightness at the edge of his thoughts eased. The system chimed again, quietly:
[System: Mana 32%. Safe margin restored.]
"Back in," John said. He opened the mouth again and fed it another half-row of old parts, slow, steady, never yanking, never letting the pull take him anywhere he didn't mean to go.
