“I’d rather if it didn’t. It’s going to be hell on the university’s landscaping staff if it grows out onto the grounds.”

Reacting to some innate urge to escape confinement, Stephen’s cloak of Fade-touched silk flickers — the man unexpectedly goes intangible for a moment, phasing into the Fade and then plummeting further down with a yelp, materialising within another cluster of vines. Still entangled, just a little lower in the room. He curses. At least he’s more horizontal this time, blood no longer rushing to his head.

On the other side of the room, Bonheur’s voice comes distantly: “Are you alright, messieurs?”

“Mostly!” Stephen calls back, and grasps a vine as leverage, craning his head to look back for the shape of his colleague. “You good, Viktor?”