Amberine Polime could feel her heartbeat drumming against the inside of her ribs with such ferocity she half-expected cracklines to appear across the crystalline walls of the waiting chamber. It was an ordinary side room—no larger than Professor Astrid's office back at the academy—yet in the moments before the symposium it felt smaller with every shallow breath she drew.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
At first she thought the noise belonged to the rune-etched chronometer bolted above the archway, but the sound vibrated through her bones as well, knotted up with the pulse thrumming in her ears. She flexed her fingers, then smoothed the lapels of her charcoal jacket for the twelfth time, willing the nervous sheen on her palms to disappear. It didn't. The silk lining clung to her knuckles like damp parchment. Somewhere in the back of her mind she tried to remember the breathing technique Maris had taught her on the airship—four counts in, six out—but the numbers tangled into useless shapes.
