The cafeteria table seated six, there were ten people around it.
Soren ate his rice and watched the perimeter grow.
Hansel sat on his left with his beetle perched on his shoulder, the thing's carapace brighter than it had been yesterday.
Cole Harver was on the far end pretending he'd always eaten here.
Two girls from the back row of Vesna's combat class whose names Soren hadn't learned yet sat across from each other trading looks every time he moved his fork.
Dani's moth was on the ceiling above the table.
She was three tables away eating alone because she didn't want to draw attention, but the moth tracked Soren's position the way it always did.
Grimm lay under the table with her chin on his boot.
"Your beetle got bigger," Soren said to Hansel.
"Overnight." Hansel tapped the carapace and the beetle clicked its mandibles. "I woke up and the shell had thickened by two millimeters. I measured."
"You measured your beetle's shell at six in the morning?"
