The Registrar building rose across the plaza like a wedding cake—tiered, immaculate, and too sugary for its own good. Marble pillars fluted with pinkish veins formed a colonnade that caught the last notes of the setting sun, giving the place a theatrical blush. Sentinel statues of owls and lions perched at each corner, their quartz eyes judging every passer-by. At ground level, a pair of gates latticed with copper vines stood open just wide enough to admit air—and suspicion.
Guards in green-trimmed tabards paced the front walk with the bored restlessness of lions that had been fed but not yet allowed to sleep. Their halberds clacked on flagstones in uneven duets. One yawned so wide his helmet creaked. Another bothered a bluejay feather caught in a breastplate rivet. They were watchful, but morning sloth made their patterns loose.
