Presley Vane corners me outside the dining hall at lunch.
Not physically. Presley is too smart for that, too aware of sight lines and witnesses and the specific optics of being seen to corner someone in a public corridor. She falls into step beside me instead, matching my pace exactly, which requires her to slow down because Presley normally moves like someone who believes the hallway exists for her specifically and everyone else is a temporary inconvenience.
She's carrying a tray. I'm carrying a tray. We walk side by side toward the seating area like two people who chose this, and I'm aware of every person in the room clocking the image of it and storing it.
"Your scores from yesterday's combat session were posted this morning," she says. Conversational. The voice she uses when she's a
