Spring came to Zenith like an unwanted diagnosis. The ether-weeds had forced their way through the thawed earth overnight, and the whole campus smelled of warm copper and wet stone. A month had passed since the western woods. The slush was gone, the foliage was back, and the suffocating lockdown had not moved an inch.
Vane walked the corridor of the Arcanum's intensive care ward alone. The administrative access codes Lyra had cloned were still functional — a persistent embarrassment for the Warden division that no one had chosen to address yet. The two guards outside Room 4 recognized him now. They stepped back without being told, and Vane pushed through the glass door.
The room was quiet.
