It's probably inevitable that he thinks about his visit to Kamar-Taj as he walks through Kinloch Hold with Stephen at his side. A lot of stone, no gilding, he'd said at the time when Stephen had asked. Granted, some of the gloomy atmosphere of the pace is due to years of neglect, now. But even so, the little details jump out as Julius sees them with fresh eyes: How much he's grown accustomed to having private space in recent years that was unknown to him here. (He's grown accustomed to having a door, something notably absent from any quarters that mages inhabited.) The lack of windows on most of the lower floors. The library that had been so much of his world before he'd seen any of it, now rendered small and a bit sad by the many larger ones he's seen since.

But it's less the place's shabbiness than a feeling in the air. Kamar-Taj hadn't been grand like Cumberland, after all. But it had been full of centered people, calm and dedicated and willing to nod hello to a stranger who arrived there in Stephen's company. And it had been open to the air, most of it. There's a claustrophobia to Kinloch Hold Julius hadn't been conscious of feeling in the three decades he spent here that is presently impossible for him to ignore.

"While we're here," he says quietly, while Kostos is occupied with something not requiring Julius, "did you have any ... was there anything you'd like to see?"