Chapter 28 #2
Caspian stood very still on the other side of the table, every part of him held under discipline except his face.
His face had gone white.
“I didn’t know hearing it would hurt you,” he said.
“Neither did I.”
“Now we know,” Cosima said.
“Your bedside manner remains astonishing.”
“You are breathing again. I am counting that as success.”
Caspian’s hands curled against the table, almost fists.
“If accepting me means refusing them,” he said, and stopped.
Cosima looked at him.
The look was quick.
Devastated.
Then gone.
Caspian made himself continue.
“If accepting me means refusing them, and that hurts you, then you should not accept me.”
The words came out rougher than any words he had ever spoken to me before, as if each one had to get past his father first.
For a moment, I could not find the version of Caspian Ashford I had been using to dislike him.
That was dangerous.
So I found the next sharp thing instead.
“You say that now.”
“I say it now.”
“And at the formal?”
“I will say it then.”
“In front of your father?”
His face paled another shade, which I had not thought possible.
“Yes.”
“In front of Quill?”
“Yes.”
“In front of everyone who trained you to be the answer they wanted?”
For the first time, he looked angry.
“Especially then.”
The Mark reached for him without my permission.
Then balked.
Pain snapped across my wrist.
I hissed.
Caspian’s hand moved.
Stopped.
Cosima saw that too.
“This is why they are moving quickly,” she said.
“Because it hurts?”
“Because your Mark understands the question before the room has even asked it. And it answers without your permission.”
“Wonderful.”
“No,” she said. “It is about the farthest possible thing from wonderful.”
She was standing beside me while the boy she loved offered to be good to me and asked me not to choose him if choosing him meant being trapped or in pain.
It was probably cruel, but I needed to know.
I looked at Cosima.
“Would he truly be good to me?”
Cosima’s face broke.
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “He would be the best thing you could ask for.”
She gave the answer at once, with no protection left for herself.
“But that is not the question,” she added.
Caspian lowered his head.
I felt the ache of that without the Mark.
“What is the question?” I asked.
Cosima’s gaze came back to mine, unshed tears making her eyes too bright.
“Whether good is enough when the choice has been built around you.”
That was the thing I had not wanted to say, because saying it made Caspian harder to refuse and impossible to accept.
He would be good to me.
I believed that.
The belief sat in me like a bruise.
“I can be kind to you,” Caspian said.
The words were too plain for the room.
Cosima looked away.
I wished she had not.
“I know,” I said.
“I can keep the Council from making the bond worse than it has to be.”
“That still isn’t the same as making it my choice.”
“No.”
He accepted that too quickly, and it hurt more than an argument would have.
“I wouldn’t force you,” he said.
“The Council will.”
“Yes.”
“And if I say yes to you because they have made every other answer dangerous?”
His hands stayed flat on the table.
“Then I will spend the rest of my life trying to make myself worth it.”
Cosima’s fingers curled.
I could see her nails biting into her palms.
I looked back at Caspian.
For the first time, I believed he understood exactly what he was offering. That made it harder, not easier.
“I can’t say yes,” I said.
For a moment, no one answered.
My Mark eased enough that I could breathe without forcing it.
“I know,” he said.
“Don’t say that like it doesn’t cost you.”
“It costs me.”
“Then stop making it sound easy.”
That reached him. I saw it before he put himself back together.
“It’s anything but easy,” he said.
“At the formal,” he continued, “if you refuse me, I will not let them call that a refusal of my protection.”
The Mark on my wrist gave one careful pulse.
“You would protect me after I refused you?”
“If you let me.”
“And if I don’t?”
His eyes met mine.
“Then I will protect what I can from where I am standing.”
That was worse than romantic.
It sounded like a promise he had no idea how to break.
“And if I accept you?”
He did not look away.
“Then I will spend the rest of my life making sure acceptance never becomes another word for ownership.”
Cosima stood so quickly the chair scraped behind her.
“That is enough of that,” she said, her voice too bright.
Caspian turned to her and I saw the same pain her voice held flash on his face.
“Cosima, you know—”
“No,” she said. “Do not be sweet to me right now, Caspian Ashford. I will hate you for it, and neither of us has time for that.”
He closed his mouth.
She gathered the books I had abandoned on the table and pushed the stack toward me.
“Now you know why this cannot only be about him.”
“Cosima.”
“Aldric knows more than he has said.”
“About Article Seven?”
“And about your mother.”
The air left my lungs too quickly.
“What does my mother have to do with Aldric?”
“Ask him before Quill does.”
“When?”
“After breakfast. He will be in the lower archive before first hour. Bring Reverie.”
I blinked.
“Rev?”
“She knows where doors lead that others don’t even know exist, and people underestimate where her talking goes.”
“She would enjoy that description.”
“She should. It is a rare compliment.”
Cosima slid Juno’s folded page back to me.
“Keep that.”
“Why?”
“Because Juno risked writing it and it’s more dangerous in my care than yours.”
I tucked it into my coat.
“Cosima?”
Her eyes lifted.
“If the Council turns Caspian into his father, do you think he would know?”
For a moment, pain got through so cleanly it felt indecent to see it.
Cosima looked away.
“Not at first.”
“And after?”
“After is why I am helping you.”
The answer made me feel a little less alone.
It also made me afraid of how many people were standing near the edge of my choices.
Cosima straightened the Council page in front of her.
“Go.”
“Thank you, Cosima.”
She looked up.
“Astra.”
I stopped at the door.
“Do not thank me yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if this works, you will owe me something worse than gratitude.”
“What?”
Cosima looked down at Caspian’s name in her notebook.
“A chance to prove I am not only what they made me.”
I had no answer that would not insult both of us.
So I left.
The corridor outside the east tower was too bright for how little sleep I had gotten. Somewhere below, the breakfast bell was still ringing, dragging everyone else toward ordinary things.
I went to find Rev.