Page 411 of The Academy of Blood & Shadow

Morning training schedules are stacked on the response desk when we return. Of course they are. Because mysteries don't cancel responsibility. Rhyven walks toward them. Stops. Looks at the top sheet. Then reaches. I get there first. I take the entire stack.

He looks at my hands. Then me.

"What are you doing."

"I'll distribute them."

"No."

"Yes."

"You have your own training."

"So do you."

"I can do it."

"I know."

He reaches for the schedules. I move them away.

His eyes narrow. "Eirea."

"You don't have to." His expression shifts. Very slightly. There. I look at him. Really look. He has been awake since two forty-five. Probably slept four hours before that. Chief meeting in thirty minutes.

Dragon rotations afterward. His own assessment.

Our training. Council. Everything. Always everything. "You don't have to." I repeat.

Rhyven looks at the papers. Then at me. "I know."

"Do you?" Silence. I shift the stack against my hip. He goes still. Not dramatically. But I know him enough now. I see it. For one second, the corridor disappears. Not literally. The others are still there. Somewhere.

But Rhyven looks at me like I've said something he wasn't prepared to hear. Maybe because I didn't mean only the schedules. Coffee. Food. Equipment. Routes. Water. Every quiet thing he's done and pretended wasn't worth mentioning. I saw them.

All of them.

"Eirea—"