The first thing Azrael registered was the light.
Not the harsh white of the infirmary or the cold grey of a coliseum morning. This light came through fabric, filtered and warm, the particular gold of a sun that had been up for a while and hadn't bothered to announce itself. It lay across the marble floor in long soft rectangles, caught the edge of the black sofa, found the steam rising from somewhere in the kitchen.
He was on the sofa.
He remembered that. He had moved there at some point in the night or she had, he wasn't entirely sure of the sequence. What he was sure of was the blanket across his shoulders that he had not put there himself.
He lay still for a moment and looked at the ceiling.
The apartment existed around him in its morning version quieter than the night, the city sounds below reduced to something distant and unhurried. The balcony door was cracked slightly. Cool air moved through it carrying the faint smell of bread from one of the stalls near the World Tree, which was visible from where he lay, its silver bark pale and soft in the morning light, the blue and rose leaves translucent at this hour, lit from behind by the sun in a way that made them look less like leaves and more like light that had decided to take a shape.
He sat up slowly.
His chest felt strange. Not bad. Just different from how it usually felt in the morning, which was empty in the particular way of someone who has learned not to carry things overnight because carrying things overnight is inefficient.
It wasn't empty this morning.
He didn't examine what it was instead.
He heard movement in the kitchen. The particular soft sound of someone who is trying not to wake someone else and has not yet realized they're already awake. A cup placed carefully on stone. Water poured slowly.
He turned.
Selena stood at the kitchen counter with her back to him. Her silver hair was loose, slightly disheveled in the way it got when she had slept on it, catching the morning light in a way that turned the ends almost translucent. She was wearing the white robe from the night before. Her movements were precise and quiet and she was very deliberately not looking toward the sofa.
He watched her for a moment.
She reached for a second cup.
She knew he was awake.
He looked away before she turned.
The silence that followed was the particular silence of two people who have shared something they haven't agreed on how to categorize yet, and who have silently agreed, without discussing it, to behave as though the morning is entirely normal until one of them decides otherwise.
She set the cup on the low table in front of the sofa. Steam rose from it. She sat in the chair across from him with her own cup and looked somewhere past his shoulder at the city through the balcony door.
He picked up the tea.
Outside, Arden was waking up. The sounds of it drifted up from below footsteps on cobblestone, a cart somewhere, voices at a distance that hadn't yet decided to be loud. The World Tree stood above the rooftops with the patient permanence of something that had watched this city wake up every morning for longer than anyone could remember and expected to keep doing so.
Azrael: "You put a blanket on me?"
Selena: "The temperature dropped."
Azrael: "I didn't ask."
Selena: "I didn't ask if you wanted one."
A pause.
He drank his tea.
She drank hers.
The morning light moved slowly across the marble floor between them, unhurried, covering the ground at the pace things cover ground when they have nowhere specific to be.
He became aware that his face felt slightly warm. He attributed this to the tea and did not investigate further.
Selena set her cup down and smoothed a nonexistent crease from her robe with the focused attention of someone who needs something to do with their hands.
The tips of her ears were faintly pink.
He looked out the window.
They arrived at the academy corridor twenty minutes later, both in uniform, both composed, both walking with the particular energy of people who have decided that the morning is normal and are committed to this decision.
The corridor was already busy. Students moving in both directions, conversations overlapping, the particular noise of an institution finding its rhythm for the day. Sunlight came through the high windows in angled columns that caught the dust in the air and made it visible, small particles drifting in the light like the academy itself was breathing.
Azrael was three steps into the corridor when something collided with his shoulder.
Not hard. Enthusiastically.
Michaelas: "There you are!"
He was already smiling. The kind of smile that existed before the sentence and would probably outlast it. His blonde hair caught the light from the nearest window. His green eyes had the particular brightness of someone who had slept well and woken up with a plan.
Michaelas: "I've been looking for you. Well not specifically looking, I don't know your schedule, but I was hoping to run into you and here you are so that counts." He glanced at Selena. A respectful nod, easy and unperformed. "Princess."
Selena: "Michaelas."
Michaelas: "I had an idea." He looked back at Azrael with the expression of someone presenting something they are genuinely excited about and are aware might be rejected and have decided to present it anyway. "Lunch. All of us. The whole class. There's a place in Arden, near the tree, it's outside and the food is actually good and I thought it would be" He paused. Reconsidered his vocabulary. "I thought it would be good. For everyone to sit together somewhere that isn't a classroom."
Azrael looked at him.
Azrael: "Lyssael will come?"
Michaelas: "Lyssael will come if I ask him correctly. I've been studying the optimal approach."
Azrael: "There's an optimal approach?"
Michaelas: "There's definitely a suboptimal one and I've used it twice already so I'm learning."
Something that was almost a smile moved across Azrael's face before he caught it.
He thought about saying no. He thought about the efficient use of his time and the value of distance and the specific discomfort of sitting around a table with people he barely knew while they looked at his scars and decided what to think of him.
Azrael: "Whatever."
Michaelas's smile widened. He turned to Selena.
Michaelas: "Princess?"
Selena: "I'll be there."
Michaelas: "Perfect!" He was already moving, already turning toward wherever he was going next, already in motion the way he always seemed to be in motion. "Noon, near the tree, the place with the blue awning. You'll know it when you see it!"
He disappeared into the corridor.
Azrael watched him go.
Azrael: "He's always like that?"
Selena: "Always."
A pause.
Azrael: "How?"
Selena looked at him with an expression that was almost amusement and almost something else.
Selena: "I've never found out."
They walked on. The corridor continued around them, busy and warm and full of the ordinary sounds of people who had somewhere to be. The sunlight moved through the high windows. The academy breathed its slow institutional breath.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, in a place he wasn't paying attention to, something noted quietly that he had plans for lunch.
For the first time since arriving here.
He didn't examine that either.