The transport carriages arrived at the Academy's western gate at the ninth hour, three of them in convoy, black lacquer worked with silver thread in a pattern Vane had never seen anywhere on Zenith and understood immediately anyway.
He felt it before he saw it — the ambient field around the gate tightening, the way air tightens before a storm breaks, half a dozen presences moving through it with the specific, unhurried weight of people who had never once needed to walk quickly to be taken seriously. Around them, ordinary Academy traffic continued — students crossing between sessions, a delivery cart creaking toward the kitchens — utterly unaware that anything unusual had arrived at all.
Isole stood beside him at the edge of the Academic District's outer walk, spine straight, hands folded, watching the carriages come to a stop with an expression that gave away nothing at all — which was, Vane understood now, the loudest possible thing her face could do.
