"Lucavion. Stay."
Two words, delivered to the plate.
During his life on Earth, those words had belonged to a very specific genre of dread. A teacher said them as the bell rang, the room emptied around the one student named, and nobody in recorded history had been kept behind to be congratulated.
He did not rise. His hands stayed flat on the bench, where they had been all lesson, and he spent the time she had given him on her face instead. She still had not looked up. The window light caught her in profile: jaw level, lashes lowered over the cleared plate, the mouth held at a neutral so flat it had to be deliberate. Selenne did not do anything with her face by accident, so when she did, it was worth reading. A point of violet flickered at one fingertip and went out.
"That is an interesting expression," he murmured.
