Chapter 96

Aria's POV

The practitioner exchange proposal took six weeks to move from Rendell's initial message to something resembling a plan.

Not because anyone was reluctant. Because the logistics genuinely required care. A teacher spending a term away from their school created a vacancy that needed filling. Their host school needed adequate preparation time. The teacher needed support structures in an unfamiliar territory — housing, community integration, enough orientation to be useful rather than merely present.

Corinna raised the additional complexity that the western hub created. A practitioner exchange between Shadow Peak and the confederation was bilateral. With the western hub involved it became triangular, which was not more...