Page 9

If someone pulled a knife, I knew what to do. If a Rift creature slipped containment, I could name the anatomy, the likely movement pattern, the fastest way to put it down or box it in. If somebody collapsed in front of me, I could work out what was wrong before most people finished shouting for a healer.

Strangers walking near me shouldn't have been harder than any of that. But there were too many bodies, too many voices, too many movements I couldn't predict. Every stranger got closer than anyone normally got to me, with no warning first. Someone laughed behind me and I stopped myself from turning. A trainee cut across the road because he'd spotted someone he knew. Another group stopped near a doorway and blocked most of the path without anyone telling them to move.

None of them were doing anything wrong yet my body didn't seem to care.

I drifted toward the edge of Nephrite. Halver shifted a few seconds later, moving to my left and staying there, exactly where my knife hand would have needed the most room, putting most of his size between me and the people coming the other way. The next group walked around him instead of squeezing between us, and he did it so naturally I might have called it coincidence if he hadn't adjusted again when two trainees came up from behind.

I faced forward before he caught me watching. Masters noticed things because noticing me was their job. Janus noticed because he'd known me long enough to spot when I was pretending something didn't bother me. Halver had known me for less than an hour and worked it out without asking a single question or making a show of it.

What was I supposed to do with that? A tiny fruit basket?

We left the busiest part of the grounds behind, and I felt the change before I noticed it outright. The roads widened. The crowd thinned. Fewer trainees cut across our path; more people wore Battalion black. The Citadel still dominated the skyline whenever I glanced back, towers stacked over everything below, but ahead the grounds turned into something I hadn't pictured at all.

Houses.

I'd known the Residential Battalion lived here. Residential was right there in the name. Somewhere in my head, though, I'd pictured barracks. Long stone buildings split into identical rooms, maybe a communal hall and a training yard between them, everything arranged tight enough that someone could inspect the whole district without a headache.

Instead the road curved into a broad circle of houses.

Some were bigger than others, but none of them looked like barracks. Dark stone softened under climbing plants, narrow gardens, trees left to grow however they wanted. Boots sat outside doorways. Coats hung over railings. Someone had propped two training swords against a wall beside a bucket of potatoes, and farther around the circle a man in Battalion uniform leaned out an upstairs window arguing with someone below about who'd used the last of the soap.

I slowed again.

Alex had picked his talking back up somewhere along the way, mostly aimed at Corian now that he'd decided his forced silence had satisfied Halver.

"I'm just saying, if we're reorganizing the duty rotation because we added someone, I should get fewer cleaning duties."

"No," Corian said.

"You didn't even think about it."

"I thought about it before you finished the sentence."

"That isn't a real consideration."

"It was enough."

Alex looked at Nykos. "Back me up."

"Not a chance."

"You're all impossible to live with."

Halver glanced at him. "Leave, then."

Alex pressed a hand to his chest. "And deprive you of me?"

"Yes."

His reply came fast enough that a laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Heat climbed my neck before I'd even finished making the sound. Four heads turned at once.

Was that creepy? Should I say something?

I pressed my lips shut, too late. Alex's face lit up like he'd accomplished something, rather than getting laughed at for being insulted.

"There," he said, pointing at Halver. "Useful. I contribute to squad morale."

"You were the joke," Nykos said.