All I had to do was make sure that I was getting pushed off in the right direction to do what any sensible person does at the end of term: I went straight for the workshop, where I had two shining minutes all to myself before anyone else got there. The supply containers are all purged completely and refilled from scratch at end of term, so I didn’t even have to worry about mals. There were five forging aprons hanging by the big furnace, made of some heavy flame-resistant fabric; I grabbed the one that looked closest to Aadhya’s size, spread it out on a workbench, and started loading it up.

I went for book chest materials first, because if you have a particular project firmly in mind, and you sacrifice an opportunity like being first into the shop after a resupply, you’re more likely to find what you need. Straight away I scored another four pieces of purpleheart, two bars of silver for the inlay, a set of heavy steel hinges, and a coil of titanium wire that I was pretty sure I could use to make a spelled wire that would hold the lid in place however open I wanted to leave it. I even found a little section of an LED lightstrip. Spellbooks are mad for electronics; if you make a book chest that lights up when you open it, you’re almost guaranteed never to lose a book unless you’re really careless.

Other people started turning up just as I finished piling that up on the apron, but even then I had another good couple of minutes to grab miscellaneous things before I had to start worrying about protecting my haul, since all of the new arrivals went straight for the materials that are really valuable for trade, like titanium rods and bags of diamond chips. I decided not to compete: instead I thought about what Aadhya might need for her lute, and I found a bag of fine metallic wire, a packet of sandpaper, and two enormous bottles of clear resin. I bundled it all up and carried it out with me just as the crowd really started to arrive.

I went the other way down the corridor from the shop, to the opposite landing all the way on the other side of the school. I didn’t want to have to fight my way through the adoring crowd that was probably still clogging up the one where Orion was, and anyway since our floor had rotated, it was entirely possible that the other landing would now be closer to my own room, and all sorts of other perfectly adequate excuses. The stairs are crowded at end of term with everyone running all over the school madly for supplies, but going down to the senior dorm room wasn’t as bad. There wasn’t anyone below us anymore.

Our res hall itself was positively civilized. Anyone still there had missed the best shot for supplies, so mostly it was just enclavers who didn’t need to go to the effort; they were enjoying hot and relatively carefree showers, or just hanging out in the freshly cleansed corridor chatting in groups. Some of them actually nodded to me as I went by, and one girl from Dublin said, “You got a forging apron, lucky girl! Would you swap for it?”

“It’s for Aadhya, ninth room down from the yellow lamp,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to hire it out.”

“That’s right, I saw you written up, best of luck,” she said, with a congratulatory nod, exactly as though I was a fellow human being or something.

I got my haul back to my room, which I entered pretty warily, since I hadn’t been there to barricade the door against mals trying to flee the mortal flames in the corridor. Mana was still flowing handily through the power-sharer on my wrist, and I didn’t have the least compunction using it to cast a Revelatory Light spell. I went over every last corner of my room with it, including under the bed, which I pushed onto its side. Just as well: I spotted a mysterious cocoon tucked very carefully inside one of the big rusty springs, waiting to become an unpleasant surprise. I tipped out the jar of nails and screws on my desk and put the cocoon inside it. Maybe Aadhya would be able to do something with it, or I could sell it to some alchemy-track student.

I found a few more handfuls of vermin-class maleficaria on the shelves among my textbooks, and while I was dealing with them, one small scuttler jumped off my desk where it had been hiding behind the papers. It had no ambition for a meal at the moment; it just ran straight for the drain in the middle of the floor. I tried to zap it, but it was too fast and I missed. It dived between two bars of the grating, energetically wriggled its rear with the gleaming stinger, and squeezed through before I could think of anything else to throw that wouldn’t have melted down a large section of the floor or possibly killed anyone walking past in the hall. Oh well. That’s how the whole place would get thoroughly infested again by the end of the first quarter; there’s not much to be done about it.

I’d just tiredly tipped my bed back over with a big clang when someone knocked on the door. I killed the Revelatory Light instantly; my impulse was to pretend I was somewhere else, on the moon maybe, but the light had surely been visible on the other side of the door through the cracks, and anyway I’d literally just made an enormous thumping noise. I steeled myself and went to the door, and cracked it open with several possible remarks going through my head, none of which turned out to be relevant, since it was just Chloe. “Hey,” she said. “I saw the light. I heard you and Orion made it out, I figured I should see how you were doing. Are you okay?”

“I’d say I’m as well as could be expected, but I don’t think anyone had any right expecting me to come out alive, so I suppose I’m actually better,” I said. I took a deep breath, made the effort to let go of the freely flowing mana, and unclasped the power-sharer band and held it out to her.

She hesitated and said tentatively, “You know—if you change your mind about the spot—”

“Thanks,” I said, shortly, without pulling it back, and after a moment she reached out and took it.

I thought that would be it, and I’d have liked it to be. Chloe had clearly just taken a shower and had her damp dark-blond hair back from her face in two thin silver clips; it was in a neat bob that someone had surely cut for her lately, and she was wearing a blue sundress with a twirly skirt and a pair of strappy sandals, the kind of outfit not even an enclaver would risk wearing past the first month of term. It didn’t have a single stain, and it wasn’t even much above the knee; she couldn’t have worn it until this past year or it would’ve been hanging off her.

Meanwhile I was in the more threadbare of my two shirts, which hadn’t been improved by my recent adventures, my dirty, patched combat pants with the thick belt holding them up and the two strips I’ve sewn onto the bottoms to make them longer, and the ragged six-year-old Velcro sandals I’d had to trade for midway through sophomore year when I definitively outgrew the pair I’d come in with. I’d gone for a too-big pair at the time, but by now they were on the last inches. My hair was mostly hanging out of the ragged plait I’d done before going down into the hall. Not to mention I hadn’t showered in the last four days, unless you counted getting drenched to the skin in the corridor purge. And I don’t care about dressing up, I wouldn’t even if I could, but the contrast made me feel even more like I’d recently been dragged backwards through an entire hedge maze.