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She was still thinking about it a week later, ink drying unnoticed on her fingers, when Julen’s voice cut through the morning quiet beside her.

“You’re late,” he said, though his smile softened the accusation. “Again. And Master Orell’s in one of his moods. He’s been pacing since the bells, looking for someone to correct.”

As if summoned, Master Orell swept down the central aisle, grey robes precise, a junior scribe trailing him with an armful of ledgers. He stopped at a desk two down from hers, lifted a fragment from its cloth without a word, turned it a quarter-inch, and set it back exactly as it had been, but straighter. The scribe who’d shelved it went pink to the ears. Orell said nothing. He didn’t need to; the correction was the rebuke.

He left as quickly as he’d come, robes whispering between the shelves. Julen exhaled through his teeth. “You’re lucky, Colwyn.”

“I wasn’t even late,” she replied, slipping behind her desk. “The bells only just rang.”

“And yet here I am, indexing, and there you are, only arriving.” He nodded at her, taking in the shadows under her eyes. “You look like you haven’t slept all week. Someone keeping you up?”

She frowned. “The bed’s too narrow. And it’s starting to feel a lot colder here than back home.”

“Mm.” A pause she could feel him deciding whether to fill. “No one waiting for you back down the coast, then? To write home to?”

“Just my father.” She could see where this was going.

“There was someone else, though?”

“There was,” she agreed. She dipped her quill. “Is this an interrogation or a proposal, Julen? Because if it’s the second I’ll need it in writing, and your hand’s appalling.”

He opened his mouth, closed it and went back to his grain receipts with the ears of a man who had lost.

“You should get the green ink, the Sanctum sells it,” he said a moment later, nodding at her inkwell. “Holds colour for years.”

She had seen the price of the green ink. She said nothing, and reached for the gall she’d mixed herself. “I’ll look into it,” she offered.

“Suit yourself.” He leaned closer then, his voice turning more serious. “You heard about what happened at the temple district? They say a tremor split one of the Sanctum steps clean through.”

Maia’s quill hovered above her parchment. “Already? That doesn’t seem possible.”

“Doesn’t it?” His brows lifted. “People are saying the glass could spill.”

She swallowed. The fragment had said almost the same thing.

Julen watched her too closely, as though testing how far he could unsettle her. Then his mouth twisted in a half-smile. “Careful, Colwyn. You look pale. Someone might think you’ve seen a ghost.”

Before she could bite back, a hush rippled through the chamber. Boots echoed - not the soft shuffle of scribes or the sandals of traders - but heavy footsteps with the weight of armour.

Maia stiffened.

There he stood in the doorway.

He filled it without trying to. Broad-shouldered, built as though the world had tried to break him once and failed. There was something severe in the line of his mouth, in the stillness he held too well; a quiet, coiled restraint that drew a few gasps from those who dared to look. His pallor set him apart from the warm-toned scholars around him.

Maia did not find him frightening, though she did find it difficult to look away. His silver-tinged eyes passed over Julen without pause. When the gaze reached her desk, her chest tightened with a sudden, winged flutter.

“Guardian Caelith.” Master Orell had reappeared, stepping forward. His shoulders were drawn back with irritation. “You are far from your post.”

“I have been sent by the Elders,” the Umbralyn replied. His voice was low and smooth. “The fragments require confirmation.”

“Confirmation,” Orell repeated, the word sour. “From you?”

Caelith did not react. He merely extended one gloved hand. Another junior scribe hurried forward with a sealed parcel. Maia recognised it instantly.

“Wait,” she said, before she could stop herself, her voice carrying farther than she intended. “Those fragments. I have already begun their translation.”

The silence that followed became long enough for her disobedience to become visible. Julen went rigid beside her. Orell’s lips thinned.