Location:Obsidian Academy — The Old Armory
Date/Time:6 Ashwhisper, 9942 AZI — Later
Realm:Lower Realm
The signed sheet lay on the end of the bench where they had left it, weighted at one corner by the broken badge, and nobody had suggested moving it anywhere safer.
The mantles came off first.
Nobody had to be told. They took them off the way people take off something they have not earned the habit of yet — carefully, at both shoulders, with a hand under the wool so it would not drag — and there was a moment of mild absurdity while ten people looked around an armory for somewhere clean to put them, and settled on the second bench, folded, in a row.
Not one of them put a mantle on the floor. Jayde noticed that and did not remark on it.
Then they went back to work in the coats, which stayed on, and would stay on for the rest of the night, because a coat is a working garment and this was work.
***
