Ashe was the first one out.
She left before the healer finished tying the final wrap on her forearm, tucking the end in herself with the impatience of someone who has been horizontal for long enough. She pulled her jacket on at the door and then turned around and looked at the ward: at Vane in his bed, at Isole sitting with her staff, at Valerica standing near the window with her arms crossed.
"Same time next semester," she said.
It was not a joke exactly. It landed somewhere between a joke and a statement of fact about who they were and what they kept doing to themselves. Isole made a small sound that was her version of a laugh. Valerica looked at the ceiling with an expression that was trying not to do something. Vane said nothing, but Ashe looked at him for one moment with her red eyes, a real look, not a performance, the kind that passes between people who have been on the ground in the same courtyard, and then she was gone.
The ward went a little quieter.
