Breakfast smelled like porridge and pepper. The canteen line wound past a hand-painted sign the kitchen women hung before dawn:
NO BONES IN THE CANTEEN.
Marrow sat outside the doorway with the patience of a statue. He had learned the sign after two warnings and a biscuit. Hollow clung to the lintel and pretended to be a carving. A first-year reached up to tug him down; the bird lifted one rib, clicked once, and stayed put.
I slid my tray along the rail. A kitchen aunt with iron hair eyed the black streak on my cuff. "Grease?"
"Gate work," I said.
She grunted and added a second scoop. "Eat. You look like you argued with a stair."
A boy two places up pinched a roll from the basket and palmed it. Hollow dropped the roll back onto his tray, neat as a polite thief returning loot. The boy flushed. The aunt didn't miss a beat. "Thank your luck the bird likes rules."
