Chapter 16: Callum Asks Marsh the Wrong Question

Marsh arrived on a Tuesday, which meant nothing and felt like it should.

Callum noticed her from the third-floor window of the History of Thresholds classroom, which had relocated since last week — same door, different geometry, a window it hadn't had before that looked down at the western courtyard at an angle that shouldn't have been achievable from that position in the building. He had stopped trying to reconcile Dunhollow's spatial arithmetic with anything he'd learned about how buildings worked. It was easier to simply note the new data and move it to the file he was building behind his eyes, the one labeled *examine later* that was becoming, day by day, the largest file he carried.

Marsh crossed the courtyard with the particular gait of someone who had walked difficult terrain so long that even level ground didn't entirely convince her. Mud on her boots. The coat the color of February. She was carrying nothing, which he noted — no bag, no case, no document folder. Whatever she was here for, she hadn't brought it with her, which meant either she intended to take something away or the visit was the purpose and she knew it.