"It's the least they could do," Loxley says, brightly, taking the bottle from her to look over before slipping it into his basket of prizes. He dips down to kiss her cheek. "Let's go."

And he appears to have a direction in mind, at first deeper into the College itself, and then angled around again, up a flight of stairs, through a discreet corridor, until they step out onto a large circular balcony.

The space is big enough to be decorated with several potted trees, although it does not appear they've been very much tended to, with a few of them lost most of their leaves which have withered to dust, scattered across weathered stone. The doors and windows that lead out are dark, sealed and shut, some floor of the library that isn't seeing any use.

And beyond the stone railing, Cumberland, sprawling. The scent from the Waking Sea, the sounds of a still busy port as the light starts to sink away. The sunset is, actually, an accidental bonus, staining the sky an array of golds and indigos.

"I figured we deserved a little better than some bunkbeds," he says, questing after her approval.