The first room could be open without making a sound. Aestrith had figured out which doors creaked on the third night after arriving in the citadel. Since then, she had stopped made sure to open them without noise.

Leof was already asleep beneath her blankets. She lay on her side with both arms tucked close to her chest, breathing slowly and evenly.

The blanket had ridden up to her chin. During the day she must have tied her hair back, but the tie had come loose sometime after she drifted off. Hazelnut strands spread across the pillow in a way she had probably never noticed. She’d been unconscious when it happened.

Mab, however, was awake.

The river stone she usually kept beside the bed was being held loosely on top of the blanket, her fingers curled around it out of habit more than purpose.

The warmth inside it had already faded. Aestrith guessed Mab had stopped feeding heat into it within the last hour without realizing she’d done so.

Her eyes were open and adjusted to the darkness. When the door opened, she made no attempt to pretend otherwise.

Aestrith waited. If Mab wanted something, she would ask for it eventually.

"Do you think Leof knows she talks in her sleep?" Mab whispered the question.

Her voice came out with hesitation, showing she had spent several minutes deciding exactly how to phrase the question before speaking.

There was no complaint hidden behind it. No request either. She simply wanted an answer.

"No," Aestrith simply replied.

Mab shifted slightly beneath the blanket.

"Should we tell her?"

Aestrith considered the question for a moment. If they kept talking, Mab would stay awake longer.

"Sleep."

Mab frowned slightly, the way children did when their random musings didn’t receive an answer.

After a moment she rolled onto her side, pushed the cooled stone under the pillow behind her head, and pulled the blanket higher. She did not speak again.

Aestrith left the door partly open behind her and continued down the corridor.

The second room was louder.

She heard Beadu before reaching the doorway. The door itself wasn’t fully shut, a gap of roughly two inches remained between it and the frame.

Beadu’s voice drifted through the gap. It had the unfocused rhythm it always developed when she was exhausted but still thinking too hard, in a way her sentences began clearly then faded before the end.

Aestrith pushed the door inward.

Beadu sat upright on her bed with a blanket around her shoulders. Something rested beneath the fold of fabric in her hands.

The moment Aestrith entered, Beadu tried to hide it. It was too late.

The object was about the size of a wrapped food bundle. The aroma reaching Aestrith confirmed it wasn’t clothing or books.

Mod lay flat on her back in the neighboring bed, staring toward the ceiling. Her eyes were either closed or nearly so.

"Sometimes I wonder if he is more interested in us as people or just our powers."

She commented with the sardonic tone of a teenager, not looking toward Aestrith.

"I guess that’s already a blessing for slum girls like us."

Beadu froze. The hidden package remained trapped beneath the blanket fold.

She’d clearly decided movement would only make the situation worse. Her eyes tracked toward Aestrith, waiting to learn which problem would be addressed first.

Aestrith looked directly at the blanket fold. It was obviously hidden food again.

Then she looked away from it.

"Sleep," she said to the room.

Hild sat against the headboard with her arms crossed. Her posture made it clear she’d been dealing with the mess before Aestrith arrived, and she wasn’t entirely pleased about the interruption.

"We’re not actually children," Hild snorted.

It was less hostility and more a contrarian tone, against the reality that Aestrith appeared in doorways at night and quietly enforced order like someone thrice her age.

"Then don’t behave like children." Aestrith flatly replied.

She rested one hand against the doorframe.

"It’s late, go to sleep."

Hild watched her for another second, likely deciding whether continuing the argument served any purpose. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Apparently it didn’t.

She uncrossed her arms, slid down against the mattress, and pulled the blanket over herself. It was less surrender and more concession after making her point.

Beadu still hadn’t moved the package.

Aestrith pulled the door shut and continued onward.

The corridor stretched long enough that walking it took time, and there was little to occupy her besides the sounds of the building around her.

The citadel was different at night. During the day, too many layers of noise blended together. At night, every sound separated cleanly against the silence beneath it.

A door shifting somewhere in the far wing. The residual heat in the kitchen warping old floorboards. The wall’s stone tightening in the colder air.

She had not intended to check the rooms tonight. She never did.

Originally she’d been heading toward the office. Then she’d reached the corridor, turned automatically, and ended up here instead.

The decision hadn’t been more complicated than that.

That was usually how movement worked in her life. You left one place. Then you remained wherever you stopped until something made you move again.

She’d stayed in this building long enough to learn things without meaning to.

Which doors creaked. That Leof talked in her sleep. That Beadu hid food somewhere in the second room. Which magical exercises left them hungry afterward and which ones didn’t.

That Hild always stayed awake until everyone slept first because she considered it her responsibility.

Aestrith had never consciously planned to notice any of that either.

The office door stood slightly open.

She pushed it inward.

The lamp near the shelves had nearly exhausted its oil. Its flame sat low and weak, producing more shadow than illumination.

The candles on the desk still had life left in them. The two closer ones would burn out before morning. The far candle had a few hours remaining.

The ledger remained open.

Beorn sat slumped over the desk with his head resting on one arm. His other hand lay near the charcoal.

A sketch filled the margin of the open page. The kind of drawing he only produced when trying to force an unclear idea into a functional design.

Aestrith examined the schematics from afar. By now she could recognize some of the odd ideas he had. This sketch for instance had a cylindrical housing, an engine stroke redirected into a hammer mechanism instead of a pump.

Multiple marks overlapped where the design still hadn’t resolved cleanly. He’d run out of night before running out of attempts.

She crossed the room and adjusted the lamp properly instead of letting it gutter itself dead.

Then, she looked at Beorn.

There was a blanket in the third drawer of the side table. She knew because she had put it there herself.

Aestrith opened the drawer without searching, removed the blanket, and crossed back toward the desk.

She draped it carefully over his shoulders and back, then adjusted it until it covered the arm hanging beside him.

She considered moving him into a better sleeping position, dismissed the idea immediately, and left him where he was. There wasn’t a better option available. He’d wake sore regardless.

Then she retrieved her own blanket from the bottom shelf of the side table and moved toward the couch.

She sat first instead of lying down immediately.

The office remained exactly as she’d found it, only quieter now that she’d finished adjusting things.

Eventually she lay down.

For a while her eyes stayed open, resting on the room without focusing on anything specific.

The candle nearest the window cast light across the edge of the desk. It illuminated the ledger’s corner just enough to reveal the texture pressed into the paper.

Somewhere inside the wall, cold air made the stone shift slightly.

Across the room, Beorn breathed with the steady rhythm of someone fully asleep.

She’d keep protecting him through the night.

For whatever reason she tricked herself to be the truth.