The Great Hall had approximately seven minutes of normalcy before the gossip detonated.
Liora and I eating breakfast together — in the quarantine zone, in full view of three thousand students, with the particular casualness of two people who'd just spent twenty-two minutes trying to kill each other and had decided that post-combat dining was a reasonable follow-up — produced a social shockwave that the academy's rumor network processed with an efficiency that would have impressed Nyx's intelligence apparatus.
Seven minutes was how long it took for the first whisper to reach the far tables.
Nine minutes was how long it took for "Liora Ashveil is sitting with Cedric Valdrake" to evolve into "Liora Ashveil is DATING Cedric Valdrake."
