The practical classroom read like habit before Lucavion had chosen where to stand — sixteen stations ringing the floor, formations threading beneath them toward a darker strip of stone at the front, cabinets sealed along one wall, two exits he registered without needing to look twice. His awareness still did that on its own. It simply offered him nothing to say about it afterward.
Something in his chest still answered when he breathed too deeply. He let the breath go shallow instead and kept walking.
Students glanced at the black Martial fabric before they placed the estoc, murmurs following him in that order — Rotunda, Selenne, a name half-recognized. 'Word travels faster than I can outrun it, apparently.' He found the thought without much interest in finishing it.
He took the third-row station without deciding to. It was only afterward that he noticed whose station stood beside it.
