Fourth bell was twenty minutes away. Eloy watched Maya rearrange the common room table for the third time. The clause chain moved two inches left. The ink pot shifted to align with the table's edge. The quill case rotated forty-five degrees.
"You've been planning this since before dawn," he said.
"The tea went cold at four. Four-seventeen. I noted the time."
The registrar's clerk took lunch at four-thirty. Every single day. Same bench, same bread, same twenty-two minutes. During lunch the office would sit empty. The filing cabinets behind the desk held personnel records in the third drawer, alphabetical by surname, cross-referenced by date of appointment. She touched the knife's handle. Valen's knife. The one holding down the clause chain.
