Chris was drifting on the edge of sleep when the Dark Heart spoke to him again. It is time.
...What?
You are worthy. The voice echoed through him, shaking him, too impossibly large for even a wolf's toughened flesh.
All right. I... What do you need?
You offered me rest, but I need -- I CRAVE -- release. You are a worthy successor to my power... and my duty. You play at being a wolf, but for this you must drop the act.
Alone in his bed, Chris considered that. He was still inside the training center, and even Antoinette had come to believe that they had no real privacy here. Whatever the Dark Heart had in mind, it was likely to attract attention from the magi, and he couldn't afford that. So, All right, he thought, and pried himself out of bed. Let's go find a place where I can do that.
It was a matter of small minutes and quick movements to get himself out the door, out of the dormitory, and across the campus to the gates. A tired-looking magus looked up from his phone as Chris trudged towards him. "What?" he asked, bored and impatient behind his desk.
"Christopher Black, Registered Outsider, requesting a one-hour pass to go outside."
"Vehicle?"
"None. I'm not going anywhere in particular, I just need some time to myself -- and I can't get that here."
The magus set his phone aside and turned to his computer, typing slowly enough to make Chris slightly crazy with impatience. It had been a long day, with the trip into Tulsa and the skinless corpse and the ice skating, and he wanted nothing more than a full night's sleep... but apparently the entire Universe was conspiring against him on that.
"Yeah, all right," said the magus, as something flashed on his screen. He plucked a piece of paper and gathered a bit of Grey, then inscribed two separate glyphs on the paper: one at the top, the other at the bottom. "This one will let you out, and this one will let you back in... but if you take more than the hour you're allotted, we'll know -- so watch your time out there." He sat back, dark-skinned and brown-eyed, with curly hair cut short. "Word of advice? We don't get a lot of these requests, and most don't get approved. Somebody likes you, so don't screw that up."
"I won't," Chris told him. "That's why they like me."
He took the paper and walked out through the gate, watching as the upper glyph burned away.
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