Soren was halfway through his second cup of bad infirmary water when the door opened again, and he already knew who it was before he looked up.
Selah walked in holding a folder under one arm.
Her hair was a little messed up at the back like she'd been leaning against a shelf for too long, and there was archive dust on her sleeve that she hadn't noticed yet.
"The survey exists," she said.
"I told you it did."
"Subsection C, lock broken, third drawer from the left. The page about the cracked column is exactly where you said it would be."
She set the folder down on the bedside table.
"Which means either you actually read it, or you got very lucky and remembered the right thing to lie about."
"Both can be true."
"Don't be cute."
She pulled the chair to the bed and sat in it backwards, arms folded over the top of the backrest, chin on her wrists.
Her face was about a foot from his.
Grimm opened one eye on the floor, looked at the distance between them, and very slowly closed it again.
The shadow under the bed got about an inch longer.
Soren noticed and pretended not to.
"So here's the part where I tell you what I want," Selah said.
"Okay."
"I want to room with you."
He blinked. "That's not a thing the academy lets people do."
"It is if your roommate dies in a Fracture, which mine did three weeks ago, and the dorm office hasn't reassigned me because Class Z gets reassigned last."
She tilted her head.
"Your roommates left after the shadow incident on day one. Your room has three empty beds. I checked."
"You checked."
"I check things. It's how I survive."
He looked at her face and tried to read what she actually wanted, because the surface answer was too clean to be the whole answer.
She was a Class Z student with an unregistered illegal beast and a tendency to fall on top of strangers in lectures.
"You think I know things you can use," he said.
"I know you know things. Whether you'll let me use them is a different conversation."
"Fair."
Grimm made a sound from the floor.
It wasn't quite a growl.
It came from somewhere in her chest that wasn't supposed to make sounds at all, and Soren felt the temperature in the room drop about two degrees in three seconds.
Selah's eyebrows went up.
"Did you do that?" Soren asked her.
"No."
"Grimm."
I don't want her in our den, master. I don't want anyone in our den.
The voice in the back of his skull was sweet and cold at the same time, and it had the kind of patient finality that made his stomach turn over.
"Grimm, sit up."
She sat up, white fur, sealed eyes, head pointed exactly at Selah's throat.
The shadow under the bed had now reached the chair legs.
Selah looked down at it, looked at Soren, looked back at the shadow, and very slowly put one bare hand on the bedside table.
Frost bloomed under her palm in a perfect circle.
"Tell your wolf that I bite back," she said.
"She knows."
"Tell her anyway."
Soren put his hand on Grimm's head and scratched the spot behind her ear that she liked.
Grimm. Pull it back.
She wants you, master. I can smell it on her. She's going to try.
Pull it back.
Only because you asked.
The shadow retracted.
The temperature climbed a degree.
Grimm laid her head down on her paws and watched Selah with her sealed eyes the whole time.
Selah exhaled very slowly, the frost on the table cracked, melted, and ran in two thin lines down the wood.
"You have a problem with that wolf, Soren Kane."
"I'm aware."
"I'm still moving in."
He looked at her for a moment longer than he meant to.
He was thinking about the cap, the friction, and the fact that having Selah within ten feet of him for eight hours a night was probably going to push Grimm's obsession to fifty within forty-eight hours.
That fifty was the number where his soul started cracking.
Soren was also thinking that she had read the survey, which meant she had spent her morning verifying his story instead of reporting him, and that mattered.
"Okay," he said.
"Just like that?"
"You'd come anyway."
"...Yes."
"Then yes. But there are rules."
"I love rules."
"Rule one. Don't touch Grimm without asking."
"Done."
"Rule two. Don't touch me without warning."
She tilted her head.
"Why?"
He looked at her flat. "Because the last person who did is currently telling the medical wing that shadows have fingers."
She held his eyes for two seconds and then she actually laughed, just a short one, the kind of laugh that surprised her on the way out.
"Deal," she said.
She stood up, picked up the folder, and left.
The door clicked shut.
Soren stared at the ceiling for about ten seconds.
Then he dropped his face into his hands.
[DING!] — Obsession Index: Grimm 47/50. Spiritual Friction: 14%. Tamer is advised to limit close-proximity female contact for the next 72 hours.]
"Yeah," he said into his palms. "I'll get right on that."