﴾ for all the years jamil dreamed of serving kalim more humility than he can chew, he'd never imagined it to be quite so irritating as this. the sighing, the hesitation — jamil does not bother with wandering very far away from the door at first, anticipating those grasping hands and smiling kisses that seem to always strike the second they are alone. he realizes he looks foolish, then, and hurries to make up for it, one hand spreading kalim's notebook across his desk as the other weaves spellchannels in the air that stir in those unmade sheets gathered in the center of his bed, twisting them into tidy order and sailing off to neaten up the next corner of the room.

kalim, obviously, won't have anything to worry about. jamil tucks his own notes into the gored center of kalim's book, hand-written and color-coded for easy reference, as always. whatever kalim thinks he knows about their situation, it's simply too late to abandon such duties and wildly grating that he even thinks to question them now. what's next, no more witching hour patrols for encroaching assassins? is kalim going to graduate from stirring pots to testing his own food for poison? the very notion makes jamil ill. ﴿

Ah? You think you know better than me, now, what I should or should not be doing?

﴾ this is what happens when jamil leaves kalim to his own devices: he always returns with silly ideas that jamil needs to exorcise from his mind before they begin to fester. it's a lesson learned that he needs to be more careful with outside influences, even more than he has been in the wake of octavinelle's little winter break stunt. he can begin by striding forth and seizing kalim's chin — and it's not lost on him that kalim is the only one who will meet his eye anymore, still, even after everything. his taloned grasp is secure, but not harmful, only as uncomfortable as kalim feels being pinned beneath such an intense stare and gently jostled until his senses return to him. ﴿

Stop thinking. It's unbecoming of your station.