The kids were still chanting when Noah and Seraleth got back to the car.
He could hear them from the street below even after the orphanage gate had closed, the sound carrying up through the open window Matron Hess had leaned out of to wave. The younger ones had settled on Storm because someone had told them Storm was the first and therefore the best and an argument had broken out about that which had not been resolved by the time the domain brought them back. The older kids, the ten year old boy specifically, had been chanting Nyx with the conviction of someone who had made a permanent decision.
Noah got in the passenger side still smiling.
He couldn't fully explain the smile. Not the orphanage specifically, not the domain visit, not any single moment. Just the accumulated weight of a day that had asked nothing from him except to be present in it.
Seraleth got in beside him, started the car, lifted them off the rooftop pad and into the aerial lane heading south toward the harbor.
