He pulled open the bag Blevins had given him. Inside were cotton sheets and blankets, a plump feather pillow, a hunk of tallow soap for washing, and two Mystwerk robes in deep crimson wool (one size to fit all, apparently). He stroked the fine fabric and set the robes aside for trying on later.

Han returned to the hallway, where Dancer waited with Cat and Master Blevins, who, it seemed, wasn’t going anywhere as long as a girlie remained on the fourth floor.

“Where can we get some supper?” Han asked Blevins, who looked all pinch-eyed, as though he still expected to take abuse about the rooms.

“The dining hall is across the courtyard, next to the kitchens,” Blevins said. “Serves ever’body at Mystwerk and Temple. They’ll have your names. Meal times is posted down in the common room, and if you get there late, you go hungry.”

Han turned to Cat and Dancer. “Let’s go back to the bridge tonight, after we go to the Temple School,” Han said, aware of the weight of clan money in his pockets. “I feel like celebrating.”

“Lots of Mystwerk students like The Crown and Castle,” Blevins said. “They serve a hot supper and a fair jack of ale at a good price.”

They descended the steps from the dormitory, leaving the covered galleries to shortcut across the quad toward the temple towers.

Classes had dismissed for the day, and the campus now swarmed with students despite the steady rain. Most wore utilitarian boiled-wool cloaks over their scholars’ robes, their books and papers tucked underneath out of the wet. A few glowed with power—those drew Han’s eye. Most headed for the dining halls, but a few better-dressed students broke off and walked toward the bridge.

The temple also looked to be one of the oldest buildings on campus. It stood next to the river, surrounded by formal gardens and pavilions that ran down to the waterside. The front of the building faced the temple quad, the arched doorway leading to the sanctuary and classrooms. If it was like Southbridge, the side wings with broad porches likely housed the dormitories.

Students and dedicates sat on the porches, under the shelter of the roof. Some were curled up in wicker chairs, reading; others treadled spinning wheels or bent their heads over stitchery. A circle of students sat on cushions around a master, who smeared paint onto a canvas.

The common room for the dormitory lay just beyond the side door off the porch. A Temple student sat at a desk under a wall of mailboxes, a cloth spread out in front of her, an array of tiny tools and bits of precut wood laid out on the cloth. She was doing marquetry—inlaid pictures made of exotic woods.