The carriage slowed before he saw the hall.
The first district's roads were wider, the lamps burning at a higher frequency, the ambient mana noticeably richer than the second district's. Through the window the reception hall was visible half a block before they reached it — not by shape first but by its light. Three-storey windows, the warm gold of the mana-lit interior spilling through them onto the cobblestones in a way that made the road look different from everything surrounding it.
The carriage stopped.
December air when he stepped out. The sound of the gala already audible through the walls — not the words, just the register of two hundred people in a large space maintaining the correct temperature of a formal event. The chamberlain's staff were at the entrance in imperial livery, working through the arriving queue with the efficiency of people who had done this at this event for many years running.
