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The words settle under my ribs.
The hunger answers with quiet warmth.
“That’s poetic,” I say.
Sable glares at me. “I am being emotionally supportive. Don’t ruin it.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“I am medium sorry.”
“That sounds right.”
She bumps her shoulder against mine, and the gesture hits harder than an embrace would have. Sable has spent years braced for my collapse, for her own contracts, for Rhazek’s impossible shadows, for the price of keeping people alive after everyone else decided the cost was too high. Seeing her stand in this ruined hall with coffee in one hand and less terror in her shoulders feels like proof too.
Not civic proof.
Family proof.
Isolde crosses the hall toward us with a folio under one arm and sunlight caught in the loose strands of hair around her face. She wears a dark gray coat cut for movement, ink on two fingers, and the expression of a woman prepared to correct a city if it files itself improperly. People make room for her now. Some bow. Some nod. A few look uneasy, but none of them speak to her like a possession Vaerith misplaced.
Progress.
She stops beside me and looks down at the newly lit wardline. “Clean transfer?”
“Acceptable, according to the cheerful demon schoolmaster.”
Rhazek’s gaze turns flat. “I am not cheerful.”
Sable gestures with her cup. “He cleared his throat yesterday.”
Isolde’s mouth curves. “Practically exuberant.”
“I regret teaching any of you survival,” Rhazek says.
“No, you don’t,” I tell him.
His eyes flick toward me, and for one flicker of a second, there is something almost soft there.
Then he says, “Do the eastern line before your confidence becomes noise.”
Isolde tucks her folio under her other arm and stands close enough for her sleeve to brush mine. “You’re showing off.”
“Is it working?”
“That depends on your goal.”
“My goal is very dignified public competence.”
“Then perhaps stop grinning like a thief near an unlocked pantry.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain dramatics.”
Sable snorts. “Marry her faster.”
