Dawn came clean and early. The yard was still damp, the flagstones darker along the seams. A bell called first light. The school woke the way it always did—boots, chalk, clipped voices—like nothing unusual had happened on the roofs the night before.
I met my first restitution task at the rope rack. Three first-years waited, two boys and a girl, hands hidden in sleeves the way nervous people hide. Lyra stood with a folio under her arm and that brass coordinator badge at her collar. She didn't say good morning. She didn't need to.
"Short splice," I said. "We're doing two each. Once wrong, once right. I'll sign only if your hands can do it without your eyes thinking first."
