Soren got back to the dorm at eight-fifteen.
Selah stood dead center in the room holding a piece of paper with both hands like it might bite her.
She had thrown on one of his spare academy shirts after training and nothing else.
The hem barely reached the top of her thighs and the thin fabric clung to the curve of her hips where the frost had made her skin damp.
"What," he said.
She held the paper out.
He took it. Official academy letterhead, the crest at the top with the two crossed binding stones.
Notice of Thermal Surveillance Review. Dormitory East Wing, Floors 3 through 5. Assigned Investigator: Joan Sawyer, Continental Bureau — Thermal Division. Review window: 72 hours commencing 0800 today.
The date at the bottom was this morning.
"Slid under the door while you were with Dani," Selah said.
He'd known it was coming. The system had told him nine hours.
He'd hoped that meant tonight, but Joan Sawyer didn't wait for convenient timing.
He handed it back to her.
Grimm was on the bed with her white fur flat and her muzzle pressed hard against the mattress, which was how the wolf looked when she was pretending something didn't exist.
"How bad is Joan Sawyer," Selah said.
"Three rogue SS-Rank cases in two years. Hundred percent closure rate. She's the one they send when the regulars come back with nothing."
Selah was quiet for a second. "And she's here about a temperature drop."
"She's here about a pattern. The temperature drop is just the thing she can measure."
[DING! Joan Sawyer has accessed dormitory mana log records for the past 14 days. Cryo-sensor deployment in corridors B3 through B5 confirmed. Surveillance node installation in progress.]
Selah had read the notification over his shoulder before he could close it. Her eyes were faster than he gave her credit for.
"She's already in the building," Selah said.
"Since six AM. She sets the perimeter before she announces herself."
"You're doing well," he said. "With the fusion. You're managing it."
"Don't flatter me. I need a plan."
He looked at the paper again.
Joan's thermal survey covered temperature anomalies in a 12-meter radius.
Every localized drop Selah had produced since she'd been in this room was on those logs, timestamped and mapped.
Three incidents over four days.
All within standard deviation of an ice-type beast operating normally, except for the minus-eleven reading from last night, which wasn't standard deviation for anything.
"Cole already flagged that one," Soren said.
"Which means Joan has Cole's report," Selah said.
"Which means she's starting with a full file."
Grimm lifted her head off the mattress.
Her head turned toward the door, ears coming up, and she made the low sound she made when something she didn't want was getting closer.
Soren read the wolf's body and got to the door in three steps.
He opened it before the knock came.
Joan Sawyer was standing in the hallway with her fist raised, two inches from where the door had just been.
She had a tablet in her other hand and a cryo-sensor the size of a pen cap held between two fingers, and for about half a second she looked at him with the expression of someone whose math had just been corrected.
She recovered fast. He'd give her that.
She looked forty but moved younger.
Her eyes went to Grimm first, then to Selah standing by the bed, then across the room behind them, and she catalogued everything in about three seconds.
"The review notice was sent this morning," she said. "I'm doing courtesy introductions before I access the corridor logs."
"Courtesy introductions," Selah said from behind him.
"Yes." Joan looked past Soren at Selah. "Miss Young, your sprite shows a mana signature that doesn't match any standard fusion precedent in the database. Mr. Harver flagged it last night."
Selah's chin came up. "And?"
"And I'm curious." Joan looked back at Soren. "Your beast, the wolf. Is she Rank C?"
"Accelerated evolution."
"I know. Cole's report is thorough." She looked at Grimm.
The wolf had locked onto Joan from the bed and hadn't moved since Soren opened the door. "She's quiet."
Joan wrote something on her tablet without looking down.
She hadn't asked to come in and he hadn't offered, so the conversation stayed in the doorway where Soren wanted it.
"I'll be in the building through the end of the review window," she said.
"If you identify any anomalies in your vicinity during that time, I'd appreciate a direct report."
She held out a plain white card with only a bureau crest and a channel number. "Voluntary cooperation is weighted in my assessment."
He took the card because refusing it would tell her more than accepting it did.
She gave him one more look, the kind that said she was cross-referencing something behind her eyes, then turned and walked toward the stairwell.
Soren closed the door.
Selah was on her feet with her hands at her sides and frost climbing the back of her neck into her hairline.
"She knew," Selah said.
"She suspects. She doesn't have proof yet."
"What changes that?"
He looked at the card in his hand.
"She came to the door instead of filing a formal charge, she wants me to make a move and waiting to see what I do."
Grimm pressed her head hard against his leg and he put his hand on her ear.
[DING! Joan Sawyer has deployed 4 crystalline surveillance nodes in Corridor B4. Detection threshold: sub-0.1°C temperature variation. Mana void sensitivity: active. Duration: 72 hours.]
[DING! Bonded entity Yara Hale has detected surveillance nodes. Status: analyzing.]
Soren looked at the notification, then at the wall where the shadow was a little too still.
"Don't touch them," he said to the wall.
The shadow moved once.
"I know what she is," said Yara's voice, from everywhere and nowhere, quiet enough that only he could hear it. "She's very good."
He looked at Selah.
Selah looked at the wall.
"So are we," Selah said.
[DING! Quest timer: 18 days to Fracture. 27 days to Obsession cap collapse.] [DING! Obsession Index — Yara: 49/50. Selah: 16/50.] [DING! Soul integrity: 76%. Spiritual Friction aggregate: 26.]
Soren put the Bureau card in his pocket and sat back down on the floor with his back against the bed.
He had three people who could accidentally kill him, one investigator who had just deployed invisible sensors in his hallway, eighteen days before a dimensional boundary collapsed, and his best source of information was a dead web novel that was currently about forty-one percent wrong.
He pulled out his training notes and started writing.
[DING! Joan Sawyer has begun cross-referencing mana void residue in Corridor B4 with shadow-type beast activity logs.]
"Great," he said, and kept writing.