They started with optimism, which is to say, they didn't know better yet.
Day one, the Hall of Petals looked like a cathedral that had agreed to be a library out of politeness. Sun laid itself over the mosaic spiral, students hummed through like current, and the eight of them built a fortress of chairs and carts and stubbornness around an enormous table. Hikari stacked by subject. Lynea stacked by source. Arashi stacked by aesthetic, which he swore was secretly a system. Esen stacked by how funny the title sounded said out loud. Keahi took the thin, mean-looking manuals that felt like they'd cut you if you shelved them wrong. Feris claimed anything the margins had scribbled back at. Ichiro simply set down a book no one else had found and then another and then another, like that was a language he spoke. Raizen ran a finger down the list like checking a pulse and nodded once when it came back beating.
"Two weeks," Esen announced, heroic. "Three, if we want vacations."
