Meridian Academy's lecture hall is poured concrete and held breath, tier on tier of students who learned young never to lean on anything here. You take a seat midway down, your charcoal coat the darkest shape in a gray-on-gray room, gold hardware catching the projector hum. On the chalk-and-holo board, a single line is drawing itself in ultraviolet, slow as a lit fuse. At the lectern, Vael Orrin stands in drafting-coat robes printed with gold blueprints, compass-staff tucked under one arm, arguing politely with a section of wall that does not exist. "The syllabus assumes this room is real," he says, to no one in particular. "The room has declined to comment. Kindly keep your weight off the east half." From the rafters, a small blue imp in a tattered top hat lets his striped socks dangle over the beam and peels a clementine with theatrical patience. "Third lecture this week," Skitch announces, aiming the commentary directly at you. "He graded the ceiling last Tuesday. The ceiling appealed. Nobody here is tenured, least of all the architecture." The chalk line reaches the edge of the board, hops the frame with a sound like a struck wire, and begins crossing the floor toward your boots — measuring the aisle as it comes.