Chapter 11
Hale was waiting at the south stair the next morning.
Not for me, officially. Hale didn’t seem to do anything officially unless someone had made him, which seemed to rarely happen.
He stood with one shoulder against the stone, eyes on the traffic moving between breakfast and first hour.
I stopped in front of him.
The Pull noticed him before I wanted it to.
Leather. Warm skin. The faint metal-salt of the salle. Something steadier underneath, held so tightly it made my own ribs feel narrow.
I closed my hand around the strap of my bag and decided my body could have its opinions somewhere quieter.
“You were there yesterday.”
“I was.”
“You saw Delphine go through the west door.”
Hale’s gaze stayed on the stair.
“I saw.”
“And me?”
His eyes dropped once to my wrist.
“Yes, I saw you there as well.”
“Then tell me why they didn’t call me.”
He frowned and shook his head.
“That’s it?”
“Not here.”
“I’m starting to hate those two words when they’re in your mouth.”
Hale’s jaw tightened.
“You should just be glad it was her, not you,” he said.
“But why her and not me?”
“Because Quill isn’t finished deciding what you are.”
That was about the farthest thing in the world from comforting.
“And Delphine?”
A second-year passed too close. Hale waited until she was gone.
“Dimming is a removal word,” he said. “What your Mark is doing is something else.”
“What is my Mark doing?”
“It is… unsettled. Which is unusual. But your Mark moved toward someone. The Council will decide whether that means he owns it.”
“Caspian,” I hissed.
Hale tried to keep his face neutral, but I could see his teeth grind.
“I didn’t say his name.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He pushed off the wall.
“Don’t ask me about things like this again in a corridor.”
“Where should I ask you then? Or should I just keep my mouth shut and wait for you people to decide what to do with me?”
His eyes moved toward the lower stair, then away.
“In the salle,” he said. “When nobody is close enough to write down what you ask.”
“That sounds like an invitation.”
“It’s also warning.”
“Everything here is.”
His lips pressed thin.
“Then take this one seriously, Astra.”
He left before I could ask which part.
I was still standing there when Rev appeared beside me.
She slipped out of the side corridor at exactly the wrong angle to have arrived by accident.
“You and Hale,” she said.
“There isn’t a ‘me and Hale.’”
“That’s probably what he’s telling himself too.”
We walked toward verse-study. A third-year coming the other direction slowed when she saw me. Not enough to stop. Enough to make sure I saw her seeing me.
Rev waited until the third-year passed.
“You know that gets ugly fast.”
I glanced at her.
“What does?”
“Hale watching you in corridors. Ashford pretending not to watch you in the dining hall. Kieran being Kieran at you.”
“Kieran being Kieran at me?”
“Kieran tells me everything. And what he doesn’t tell me, I figure out just by looking at him. He’s almost as bad as you with that.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
Rev’s shoulder brushed mine.
“I mean it, Astra. Be careful.”
That took the smile right out of me.
“I know. I will.”
“No. You know it like a person knows the stove is hot. I’m telling you the whole house could catch on fire.”
We reached the verse-study corridor.
“I’m sick of warnings,” I said.
Rev shrugged. “Just don’t be stupid, Astra.”
Then she left me at the door.
When I walked in, Cosima was already in her place, but blessedly she didn’t corner me for another pre-class chat. The other ten students came at five past, as expected. Astor arrived at ten past.
He set his book on the table and looked at Cosima instead of opening it.
“Verraine.”
Cosima lifted her head. “Yes?”
“The east tower at eight tonight. The customary group. Headmaster Quill has asked you to host the post-reading session. First-years who have been read clean are to be invited.”
Cosima nodded, and Astor began the lecture.
The lecture was on post-reading study. Apparently, students read in public attended a follow-up discussion in the east tower, hosted by the senior student of the year.
The tradition had a name: the small lens.
First-years who have been read clean are to be invited.
Not me, then. No one had read me.
A category could point without using a name.
The hour finished and I gathered my notes. I didn’t look at Cosima, and she didn’t look at me. We had both become better at ignoring each other since yesterday.
I skipped lunch and went back to my room.
For a while, I sat on the edge of the bed with my boots still on and thought about the room I hadn’t been invited into.
First-years who had been read clean would sit in a circle and learn what their Marks had done. Cosima would tell them what mattered. Caspian would sit beside her with his face arranged into whatever Ashfords used instead of expressions.
They would talk about the basin. About the reading. About whatever came after a Mark behaved properly.
No one would talk about Delphine.
No one would talk about me.
A different tower had already taught me what happened when I went where I had been told not to go.
Cold wind. Green apple. Kieran’s mouth asking before his lips touched mine.
That tower had given me a kiss.
This one would give me whatever Cosima Verraine knew and wasn’t telling me.
The room got colder as the afternoon went. So did I.
By seven, anger had outlasted humiliation.
I would go to the east tower. I would stand at the door. If Cosima Verraine wanted me gone, she could say so with her own mouth.
I wouldn’t sit here in my room and brood about it.
The east tower was a corner of the building Hale hadn’t shown me. I found it anyway.
By the second turn, two students had seen me. By the third, one of them had started walking faster to reach their destination ahead of me.
Good.
Let the room know I was coming.
They could let me in or tell me out loud that I wasn’t wanted.
The hallway ended in a common room with a high ceiling, three tall windows, and chairs set in a circle. All the first-years who had been called at the reading and passed were already sitting.
Two upperclassmen stood at the window with their backs to the room.
One was Kieran.
He saw me without turning. I knew because the air around him changed, quick and slight, like a hand closing around a match.
No faculty were present. The small lens belonged to the students.
Cosima reigned here, and she stood beside the chair across from the door, setting her small notebook on a table. Caspian sat at the chair beside hers, a leather book open on his knee.
He didn’t look up.
My Mark noticed him anyway.
A thin warmth moved under the lines on my wrist. I closed my hand into a fist to still it.
Caspian’s eyes didn’t lift, but his body stiffened just slightly in his chair.
Cosima looked up.
For two beats, she said nothing.
Then, to the room:
“The session is open to first-years who received a clean reading today. Verita did not receive one. Verita is not invited.”
The room went still around her words.
For one second, I wished I had let the trick work. I wished I had stayed in Room 114 and let the door do the refusing from a distance.
Then the second passed.
I glared at Cosima.
Just enough to make sure she knew I had heard her.
Caspian looked at Cosima, jaw tight.
Kieran turned away from the window, and I saw the apology in his eyes, but all it did was make me feel worse.
I turned before my feelings could turn into tears or something even more embarrassing, walked back down the short staircase, through the three turns of corridor, and past the hall that would have taken me to my room.
At twenty past eight, I reached the east kitchen.
I hadn’t planned to go there.
I went in anyway.
Rev was sitting on the counter reading a letter. An apple sat cut open beside her elbow.
“You went to the small lens,” she said without lowering the letter.
“I went.”
“And?”
“Cosima Verraine refused to let me in.”
Rev set the letter down.
“Those sessions are boring anyway,” she said. “Everyone pretends to be enlightened by water and then says whatever they think the seniors expect them to say.”
“Kieran was there.”
“Kieran was there because he’s nosy.”
“He looked sorry when Cosima told me to leave.”
“He probably was.”
Rev offered me an apple slice. I waved her off. My stomach was still in knots.
“Cosima looked perfectly happy to do it.”
“She looks perfectly happy doing most things. It’s part of the job.”
“What job?”
“The one she got handed when the Council decided she was useful.”
Rev ate the slice herself.
“Cosima Verraine is the Council’s eyes and ears,” she said.
“That sounds tedious.”
“It is. First-years suck up to her because they think she’ll write better reports about them. Upperclassmen avoid her because they think she’s dangerous. Faculty use her when they don’t want their own hands on something.”
“And Caspian?”
Rev’s mouth twisted.
“Caspian is complicated.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Rev cut another slice.
“I’m not telling you to forgive her. She excluded you in front of everyone. Be angry.”
“I am.”
“Good. But know what you’re angry at. Cosima has power, but not as much as people think.”
“She had enough to throw me out.”
Rev shrugged. “She’s just the one they made do it.”
I looked toward the door I had come through.
“She could still have chosen not to.”
“Yes,” Rev said. “And sometimes she does. That’s another reason why nobody trusts her.”
This time, I took the apple slice she offered.