The third floor was brighter than any part of Yinshan Academy had a right to be.
After the gray murk of the Old Library, after the shelf of forgotten names and the child's voice counting them in the dark, the ordinary daylight spilling through the third-floor windows felt almost offensive. Lin Yue stepped off the stairwell and had to blink against it, the way a person blinked stepping out of a matinee into afternoon sun.
"Okay," Shen Rui said, dragging a hand down his face. "This is either a very good sign or a very bad one. I genuinely don't know which anymore."
"It's neither," Su Qing said. "It's a hallway. Try not to read prophecy into architecture."
"After last night, I'm reading prophecy into everything. I read prophecy into my own shoelaces this morning."
Nobody laughed, but Tang Li's mouth twitched, which was as close to laughter as any of them had managed since the library.
