Sera walked up to Lyra in the yard like she owned it, and maybe she did. She had been running that yard for three years and no one had challenged it until now.
---
The morning was cold enough that the kids' breath showed in little clouds when they talked. Twelve of them, waiting outside Tess's door. The door was still shut. It wouldn't open for another ten minutes or so, and in those ten minutes, the yard was its own world, its own rules, its own order, its own everything.
Lyra knew she was being watched. She had known it the moment she stepped through the gate. Yesterday, Tess had walked them in and there was no time for the yard to do what it was doing now. Today, she and Caelum were just two children standing somewhere they didn't quite belong yet, and the yard was deciding what to do with that.
