The Grand Hall's outer doors hung open, one of them cracked clean off its upper hinge, and Vane was three steps through the gap when someone lunged at him from the shadow of a fallen banner.
He didn't recognize the boy, some loyalist third-year with a short blade and more nerve than sense, swinging wide and desperate at Vane's throat the way people swung when they'd decided courage mattered more than technique.
Vane caught the wrist before the blade got anywhere close, twisted once, and the boy's own momentum did the rest, sending him stumbling face first into the wall hard enough to drop him where he stood. Vane didn't slow down to check if he was breathing properly. He was. The boy groaned into the stone and didn't get back up, and Vane stepped past him without breaking stride, already three paces further into the hall before the boy's blade had finished clattering across the floor.
