They took a faculty apartment on the third floor because it had a real bed and the whole academy was theirs now.
Selah did the room first. She frosted the doorframe and the window and both walls, a floor of it under the bed, and then she stood in the doorway with her arms folded.
"That's not for warmth," said Soren.
"It's for the corners." Selah looked at the shadows in them. "She goes around ice. I'd like the corners of this room to be somewhere she goes around."
"You're not staying?"
"I'm the floor tomorrow. I need my hands." A pause. "And it's not my turn. It's theirs. They were the first two."
She left.
That, from Selah, was a love letter.
◆◆◆◆
The system had been screaming since the stairwell.
[DING! — Soul integrity: CRITICAL. Four-channel operation not survivable at current level.]
[DING! — Recalibration REQUIRED. Highest-mass channels: shadow, fire.]
"That's not a suggestion," said Maren, reading his face.
"No."
"How bad."
