The storm broke sometime during the night.
The sudden silence was enough to wake Sera up for a moment, but when she realized that it was just the ice and snow no longer hitting the windows around her room, she fell back asleep.
By morning the world was bare again, swept so clean that even their own tracks were gone. Wind had leveled the drifts, carved ridges in some places, erased whole landmarks in others. The horizon stretched in one long white glare, too bright to look at for long.
Sera pulled her hood tighter while Zubair worked the frame of the 21st hall window. The window stuck at first, then gave with a sharp crack as the ice around it split. Cold spilled inside like it had been waiting for them to open the way. They clipped onto the rope without speaking, and one by one they went out.
Elias first, then Sera. Lachlan and Alexei followed. Zubair came last, sealing the rope behind him with the care of a man who never left doors unsecured.
