On the landing, a squeak in the boards drew his eye. Seren Avelle. She passed by, neither slowing nor quickening, her face cleanly neutral. She did not look at Soren, but the angle of her approach put her just close enough for him to catch the micro-crease at the corner of her mouth.
On her way down, she paused, just long enough for her words to thread through a break in Cassian's speech, quiet but audible above the thump of rain.
"He's building his own blade," she murmured, perhaps to herself, perhaps for Soren. "And you're either the whetstone or the test."
Soren let the phrase run through his head a few times before he retreated to the only place that felt decently neutral: the east stairwell, with its draught and perpetual echo of old bell metal. On the descent to sub-basement, the walls tightened and the air grew colder, but at least here there was no audience.
Not tonight.
