Chapter 349: The Loyal Roommates
The dormitory was quiet.
Alex reached his bed and let his shoulders drop at last, releasing a long breath.
The scene out there had been too much for him. Too many people, too many eyes, too much of the eager attention he'd never learned to handle. Now the door was shut, those gazes locked on the other side, and the tension finally bled out of him.
Hermes stared at Regulus for a moment, then walked straight to his own bed, didn't bother removing his robes, and dropped flat onto the mattress. The curtains swayed twice. The frame let out a dull groan.
He lay there, hands folded on his stomach, eyes fixed on the canopy overhead, motionless as a corpse.
Alex glanced over at him, turned back, and was about to speak when something launched off Regulus's shoulder at the edge of his vision.
Dark red, palm-sized, eight legs splaying wide in midair. It landed on the floorboards with a barely audible pff and scuttled toward the desk.
Baruk darted beneath it, hooked his front four legs into the seam between two drawers, braced the back four against the lower one, and hauled until a gap opened. He squeezed inside.
A flurry of clicking and scraping rose from within, wood on wood, like an inspection, or a creature confirming its territory was intact.