Trafalgar caught the brush of Selara's hand near his wrist a heartbeat before she withdrew it.
"Did sothing happen?" he asked, voice pitched low enough that no one nearby would mistake it for interest.
Selara withheld the answer. Her attention prowled across the hall, sweeping past every object to trace the bones of the place itself - the arches, the reinforced glass ribs, the mana channels braided through the pillars, the careful geotry concealed beneath all that expensive beauty. Whatever had ambushed her at the entrance was not a single clue. It was mory pressing against architecture.
"No," she said at last, the word slack of any real conviction. "He helped design parts of this place. A long ti ago. Certain structural habits are hard to forget when you spent years having them hamred into your skull through lectures."
Trafalgar followed her sweep across the hall. "Your master worked on this building?"
"In part. Aurevane used to summon him whenever they wanted sothing impossible, illegal, or expensive enough to pretend it was neither." Selara tugged one of her gloves straight and dragged the public version of herself back into position. "Don't make that face. We aren't discovering anything yet. This place is old, and old work leaves fingerprints in every corner."
"I wasn't making a face."
"You were absolutely making a face."
"Must be the glasses again."
"It is never the glasses."
Before he could answer, a broad figure shouldered through the current of guests with the confidence of soone who'd known half the room since before their hair turned gray. Short, thick at the chest, planted in the world like a foundation stone, he carried himself with such density that the crowd parted around him on reflex. His white beard had been threaded with silver bands, his matching hair pulled back in tight plaits that fell across a dark formal coat reinforced at the shoulders. A dwarf - one who'd dressed for ceremony without surrendering an inch of comfort.
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