Chapter 27
Ireached Juno’s chamber with Kieran’s apple still in my pocket and my wrist aching from the summons I my body I hadn’t known was possible until today.
Juno opened the door as soon as my foot hit her hallway.
Her gaze went first to my face, then to the apple in my pocket, then to my wrist.
“Inside.”
“Another warm welcome.”
“Astra.”
One word. My name. No patience left around it.
I stepped in.
Juno closed the door and set her palm flat against the wood like she was about to undergo a great trial. The basin in her chamber was dark, but the water trembled as if something below it had not settled.
“You were with Kieran Marsh.”
My cut mouth pulled when I answered.
“Apparently privacy doesn’t exist here.”
“The basin did not show me the roof.”
“Then what did it show you?”
“A flare.”
The word moved through me like cold water.
I put a hand over my coat pocket. The apple was still there, hard against my palm.
“His Mark,” I said.
Juno crossed to the basin and looked down into the dark water.
“His Mark is damaged.”
For a moment, I heard only the pipe in the wall.
Then my own breath, thin and useless.
“Damaged how?”
“That is Kieran’s truth to give you.”
I saw it again: silver-green light leaking through dark cloth, bright at the edges, wrong in a way my body had understood before my mind could name it.
“It hurts him.”
“Yes.”
I sat without being told because I wasn’t sure my legs could hold me up any longer.
“He won’t tell me what’s wrong with it.”
“That’s because Kieran Marsh’s Mark is not yours to manage.”
The sentence struck exactly where it was meant to.
I hated her for aiming well.
“He said there were things he wanted from me.”
Juno’s face changed by the slightest twitch.
“Did he ask?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“The context around that word is getting worse every time someone uses it.”
“If he asks before you understand the danger, the Council can name it coercion. If you offer before he tells you enough, they can name it instability. If either of you are seen reaching in private, they can name you dangerous.”
Each word sounded less like a warning than a label waiting for my name.
The apple under my palm seemed suddenly dangerous.
A gift. A warning. A boy’s best attempt at not asking.
“What is the danger?”
Juno turned back to the basin.
“The Council will never sanction a bond between you and Kieran Marsh.”
The words should not have surprised me.
They did anyway.
“Never is a large word.”
“The Council has spent centuries making sure bonds like that do not survive.”
I swallowed hard.
My mouth tasted faintly of blood again. The kiss had opened the cut; I had not cared at the time. I cared now, irrationally, because it was easier than caring about the fact that Kieran had kissed me while his own Mark burned through him.
“Because of his Mark.”
“Because of his Mark, his family, his Verse, and because the Council does not permit inconvenient bonds.”
Juno’s voice sharpened.
“Do not mistake pity for choice, Astra. And do not let fear pretend to be consent.”
That should have been obvious. It was not. Fear had a way of turning people into doors: open this, solve that, get through.
Kieran was not a door.
He was a boy on a roof trying very hard not to ask for something ugly that he desperately wanted. I had recognized that without understanding it from day one.
“I don’t know what to do now.”
“Then do nothing.”
I looked up. That sounded easier than it was.
Juno had crossed to the small cabinet beside the basin. She opened the upper drawer, then closed it without taking anything out.
Whatever she had considered giving me, she thought better of it.
“If Quill learns what happened on the roof, he will not call it affection. He will call it interference.”
“Interference with what?”
“With a failing Mark. With another student’s Verse. With the sanctioned bond they have planned for you. With the Council’s preferred answer.”
“Caspian Ashford.”
“Caspian is the only answer they are willing to record.”
“And Kieran?”
“Kieran is the answer they will do everything to block.”
My Mark moved under my sleeve.
Not pain.
Anger, maybe.
That everyone seemed to have more choice about my own future than I did.
“And Hale?”
For the first time since I had entered, Juno hesitated.
That frightened me more than if she had answered too quickly.
“Hale is a thread the Council would prefer to ignore until it can decide whether to cut it or use it.”
The basin water trembled harder.
Juno looked at it, then at the door.
“This room is becoming less private.”
“That is a horrible sentence.”
“I agree.”
“So what do I do?”
“Go to Cosima.”
I almost laughed.
“Great idea. Send me off to spend time with the girl who hates me.”
“Cosima does not hate you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“She has fooled many people. That is one of her most useful skills.”
Juno came back to me and held out a folded page.
I hadn’t seen her take it from the cabinet.
The paper was thick, the fold precise. No seal.
“Give her this.”
“What is it?”
“A question I cannot ask in my own hand.”
“That explains very little.”
“Cosima will understand it.”
“And will she answer?”
“If she chooses to stop punishing herself for wanting the wrong future.”
I stared at Juno.
“Are we discussing Cosima or me?”
“Perhaps both.”
“Deeply annoying answer.”
I took the page.
“Why Cosima?”
“Because she knows the language they will use before they use it.”
“Quill.”
“Quill. Linden. The Council. All of them.”
“And if she refuses to help?”
Juno opened the chamber door and listened before she answered.
“Then ask her whether she would like to watch the Council finish turning Caspian into his father.”
That was the first cruel thing I had ever heard Juno say about Cosima.
I put the folded page inside my coat, beside the apple.
“Do I go now?”
“No. Tonight you go back to your room. No Kieran. No Caspian. No Hale. Not even Reverie LeJoi.”
“Is there anyone I am allowed to seek?”
“Sleep.”
“Unlikely to be available.”
“Try anyway.”
She stepped aside.
I paused at the threshold.
“Juno?”
“Astra.”
“If I can help Kieran, and I don’t, what does that make me?”
“A girl who does not yet know what help would cost.”
Juno’s face softened, but not enough to make the softness easy to bear.
“Do not let them turn your compassion into consent.”
I looked down the corridor.
Empty, for now.
Then I turned back to Juno.
“Is that what they did to you?”
Juno didn’t answer. But she didn’t need to.
The apple knocked once against my hip as I walked.
For the first time since I had arrived at Zenith Hall, I understood that wanting someone was not the same as owing him a rescue.