The amphitheater emptied in the specific pattern that classes always empty, which is to say with the urgency of people who have been sitting still for ninety minutes and suddenly remember they possess legs.
Caden launched himself over the seat back in front of him and landed in the aisle with the casual disregard for physics that characterized most of his decisions.
Marco followed through the normal route, chip bag already open.
Felicity gathered her tablet and bag with the practiced efficiency of someone who had already calculated the optimal exit timing to intercept whoever she wanted to intercept in the hallway, which was probably me, which meant I needed to not be in the hallway.
Percy filed past with his notebook and a nod that communicated approximately fourteen separate observations he intended to share later.
Rina followed three steps behind Percy with her sheep mug held in both hands, and their synchronized departure had become so routine over the past two weeks that nobody commented on it anymore, which was itself a form of commentary.
I stayed in my seat.
Not because I had nowhere to be. I had seventeen places to be. Felicity wanted debriefing on whatever the buttoned collar meant.
Sloane’s bond hummed with warm curiosity and the territorial edge that appeared whenever she sensed my proximity to other women, which at this point meant whenever I existed in a building that contained women.
Percy’s insurance framework needed review before Friday’s meeting. Camille was processing something I could feel at the periphery of my awareness despite not sharing a supernatural bond with her, a fact that troubled me for reasons I was not prepared to examine.
And Petra Lang had volunteered to sit in a room with Odette Reyes and Diane Fitzgerald in approximately twenty hours, which was either the most strategic thing anyone had ever done on my behalf or the most elaborate revenge plot in Halloran Academy history.
I stayed in my seat because Cole Dravid had not left the platform.
The room cleared around us in declining stages of human density. The last student to exit was Nyx, who paused at the door long enough to register that I remained seated and Dravid remained standing, then left without expression, closing the door behind her with the soft click of someone who understood that some rooms contained conversations she did not want documented in her personal files.
Dravid stood at the whiteboard where WHAT YOU KNOW and WHAT THEY KNOW and THE GAP still occupied space in his sharp handwriting. His cane rested against the podium, and his hands were clasped behind his back in the specific posture of someone who had concluded his professional obligations and was now deciding whether the next few minutes of his life belonged to the student sitting in the third row or to the armchair in the faculty lounge that bore the permanent impression of his left elbow.
I knew about the armchair. Percy had documented its location, dimensions, and the hours during which Dravid occupied it with the obsessive thoroughness that Percy applied to everything. Tuesdays and Thursdays between two and three forty-five, east window, always the same chair, always denied when asked.
It was currently one fifty-three.
"Mr. Belmont." Dravid’s voice carried the same flat register he used for everything, which made it impossible to distinguish between greeting, observation, and warning until the consequences had already arrived. "The classroom is empty. Your classmates have departed for lunch, social engagements, and whatever else eighteen-year-olds prioritize over reviewing lecture material. I note that you have not departed."
"No, sir."
"I also note that it is one fifty-three."
The specificity of that statement told me everything I needed to know about what I was interrupting. Cole Dravid had exactly seven minutes before his undocumented nap began in a faculty lounge chair that support staff had collectively decided to protect from the facilities maintenance report, and I was standing between him and the only rest his body apparently allowed itself.
"I won’t take long," I said.
"You are already taking long." His grey eyes settled on me with the weight of someone who had spent fifteen years reading people who didn’t know they were being read, and the weight did not diminish because I was aware of it. "You are sitting in a classroom you no longer need to occupy, delaying a schedule I have maintained since before you enrolled, for reasons you have not articulated. Articulate them or leave."
This was the moment where a normal student would have apologized, gathered their bag, and retreated to the hallway with the specific shame of someone who had miscalculated an authority figure’s availability. I was not a normal student, and I had not miscalculated anything.
"Professor Dravid, I wanted to say that your lecture today on information asymmetry was probably the most—"
"No."
The word arrived with the force of a door closing. Not slammed. Closed. The distinction mattered because Cole Dravid did not slam things. He placed things where they belonged with the confidence that they would stay there.
"You are not going to compliment the lecture," he said. "You are not going to tell me it was insightful, revelatory, or the most whatever you were about to claim. You are not going to perform gratitude as a social instrument to create obligation, and you are not going to waste the six minutes and twenty-three seconds I have remaining before my next commitment by pretending that flattery is the reason you remained in this room." His grey eyes held mine without flickering.
"I have been teaching for twelve years. I recognize a student who stays behind to butter up an instructor. I also recognize a student who stays behind because he is carrying something he does not know how to put down. You are the second kind, and if you continue pretending to be the first kind, I will leave and you will have accomplished nothing except making me late."
My jaw worked for a second before I caught it and forced it still.
There was a particular quality to being seen through by Cole Dravid. It was not the aggressive transparency that Steele created, where her pink eyes stripped your performance down to the components and made you aware that she was stripping it.
It was not the warm perceptiveness of Radiant, who noticed things about you and then made you feel better about them. Dravid’s version was surgical and completely indifferent to your comfort.
He identified the actual thing, stated it once in the flattest register available to the human voice, and then waited for you to decide whether you wanted to have a real conversation or not.
"I need advice," I said.