The girl at the end of the table had placed a book beside her bowl.
She wasn't reading it.
She was watching another girl eat while trying to keep the book out of reach of a spreading patch of soup.
"After you finish," she said. "Before you go back. That's all I need."
"I have the theory room booked."
"Then ten minutes now."
The other girl covered a page with her hand.
"Mira, I haven't copied the diagram either."
I passed them on the way to the serving counter, carrying the tray someone had placed in my hands before checking who I was. The Great Hall had looked simpler on the map.
Several rows of tables filled the lower floor. A raised section stood along the windows, with smaller tables, cleaner cloths, and people waiting to bring food instead of handing out trays. The difference did not require a lecture.
I showed my arrival card to the woman at the counter. She looked from it to the tray.
"Your table is above, my lord."
"This card has no standing recorded."
"Your household meal arrangement is already entered. The assessment changes academy provisions. It doesn't cancel a paid table."
I looked at the tray again. Of all the things I had prepared to hide today, not knowing where to collect dinner had received very little attention.
She took the tray without comment and called a boy over to show me the stairs. By the time I sat, I had acquired a folded cloth for my lap, a glass I wasn't sure I needed, and the uncomfortable awareness that several students below had watched the entire correction.
The boy placed a small bowl beside my hand. Warm water. A slice of something pale floating in it.
I reached for the spoon. He moved the cloth a little closer.
Ah.
For my fingers.
I put the spoon down and used the cloth as if that had been the plan. Nobody laughed where I could hear.
That did not mean nobody would mention it later. The meal was good. More meat than the bowls I had seen on the lower floor, fresh bread, and vegetables that arrived warm rather than waiting in a large pot.
I ate enough to stop being irritated with everything, then looked down toward the long tables. The two girls were still discussing the book.
Mira had a cheap notebook open beside her bowl now. Ink marked two fingers of her writing hand. A repair in her sleeve showed whenever she reached across the table. The other girl finally slid the book over.
"Until the bell."
Mira turned several pages at once and began copying. I needed to know which library desks handled old holding records. Ren could find the ordinary hours, but the servants' map hadn't told me much about the academic rules around them.
Someone negotiating ten minutes with a book probably knew the inconvenient parts. I finished my bread, stood, and took the stairs down.
The conversation at the nearest table shortened when I passed. By the time I reached Mira, she had noticed.
Her pencil stopped above the page.
"That diagram is for circulation?" I asked.
It looked similar to the primer's early figures, though the notes around it were much more detailed.
"Conduit loading," she said.
The answer was quick, practical, and apparently complete as far as she was concerned.
"The library copy?"
"Hers."
She indicated the girl opposite her, who now seemed interested in leaving without abandoning the book. I stayed at the end of the table instead of sitting uninvited.
"I'm looking for the desk that handles old custodial records."
Mira's gaze went to my crest.
"The library information desk would tell you."
"And where is that?"
"In the library."
The other girl looked sharply at her. Mira's mouth tightened. For a moment, I thought she would apologize.
She pointed toward the hall doors instead.
"The public entrance, north passage. The first desk inside."
That was more useful.
I had deserved the earlier answer, though I wasn't about to explain that in front of everyone. Her pencil moved toward the diagram again.
The bell above the lower doors rang.
She stopped.
The book's owner reached across the table.
"I have to go."
Mira looked at the unfinished drawing, then closed the book without arguing further. I had used part of the time she had borrowed.
That hadn't been my intention. It was still the result.
"Is there another copy?" I asked.
"Not one I can take out tonight."
I glanced at the small black mark on her student tab.
Obsidian.
The lowest tier on the academy list. Shared rooms, restricted hours, fewer of the things that became useful once someone had already decided you were worth them. My game guide had listed those limits beside strategies for advancing faster.
The guide had not included a way to copy a diagram after another student needed her own book back.
"Could you reserve it?"
Mira set the pencil beside her notebook.
"I have. It becomes available after the work is due."
Her friend hugged the book to her chest.
"I offered tomorrow morning."
"I know," Mira said. "I'm not blaming you."
The girl left after giving me a nervous nod. Mira turned the unfinished page down and picked up her spoon. The food in her bowl had gone cold while she copied.
I looked back toward the raised tables. A server was clearing my place, including food I hadn't touched.
"Have a fresh bowl brought," I told the nearest hall worker. "Put it on my account."
Mira's spoon stopped.
The worker looked at her, then me.
"Does she want one, my lord?"
I had skipped that part.
"Do you?" I asked.
Mira held my gaze.
"What would you like in return?"
"Directions."
"I gave them to you."
The worker waited with a bowl in one hand. I could hear someone trying not to follow the conversation at the next table.
"Then nothing else," I said.
Mira looked at the cold food, considered, and nodded to the worker.
"Thank you."
The words were directed toward him. Fair enough. He was the one bringing it.
I moved half a step away from the table so she could eat without feeling I expected a report between spoonfuls.
"Tomorrow's equipment registration," I said after the worker returned. "Same wing as the library?"
"No. East stores first, if you need a loan weapon. The registration counter is beside the practice courts. Go before the theory groups arrive."
Clear information, offered without warmth. I preferred it to a polite answer that sent me to the wrong building.
"And the book problem? Would a request from the information desk help?"
"My request is already there."
"I meant another route to the same material."
She studied me for a moment.
"Maybe. I'm checking."
That was all she offered. I glanced at the corner of the drawing still visible beneath her wrist.
"The introductory circulation primer has a figure like that. I brought a copy."
"Which section?"
I described the page as well as I remembered it. Mira listened without reaching for her pencil.
"That's an unloaded conduit," she said. "I need the return under load."
"The layout looked similar."
"The part that changes is the part I need."
I looked at the half-finished lines again. She turned the page enough to show me a gap beside the central figure. Four measurements had been copied. A fifth space remained blank.
"You can't work it out from those?"
"I can estimate. Then I'd have a neat diagram with a wrong number."
She covered the page before a drop from her spoon could fall on it. I had almost offered to send Ren for the primer. That would have used his time, hers, and the little patience she still had for the conversation, all to prove I owned the wrong book.
"If you find someone with the worked examples," she said, "ask which edition before sending them here."
"You want me to ask?"
"If you're going to ask anyway, get the useful part."
I nodded. At least I now knew what the useful part was. She took another spoonful and watched the door her friend had used. I had kept her talking through the first bowl. If I stayed much longer, the second would be cold too.
I let the book question go. At the far end of the hall, someone mentioned my name. I caught enough to hear Aiden's too.
Mira noticed where I looked.
"The entrance hall?" she asked.
"What about it?"
"People are saying you stopped a girl over her papers."
I glanced toward the speaker. Too far away to correct without turning a poor version of the story into a public dispute.
"She dropped a card. I returned it."
Mira didn't say whether she believed me.
"Aiden helped with the case," she said.
"Yes. He did."
That answer appeared to surprise her more than anything else I had said. I didn't stay to improve on it.
"Mira, wasn't it?"
Her spoon stopped again.
"Thorne," she said after a moment. "Mira Thorne."
I repeated the surname once. She watched me until I stepped back from the table.
"East stores before the theory groups," I repeated.
She nodded and went back to her meal. Near the doors, I checked the notice listing the next morning's hours. Her directions matched it.
I wrote Mira's name beside the stores hours. If I found the worked examples, I would know whom to send them to. If I needed more directions, I would choose a time when she wasn't trying to finish her own work.
Back in my room, Ren asked whether the hall directions had been correct.
"The route was," I said. "Next time, include which floor I'm supposed to eat on."
He looked at me, then at the meal card in my hand.
"Yes, young master."
I decided not to tell him about the finger bowl.