Astra
The first day passed without word from the infirmary.
Meals came through a hatch in my new door. The room had no adjoining wall, no voice from Kieran on one side or Caspian moving on the other. When I pressed my palm to the stone, I felt only the chill of it.
I paced until my legs ached, then sat on the bed and examined the three lines at my wrist. Caspian’s remained dark and steady. Hale’s lay quiet beside it. The green-gold line still ended unfinished against my skin.
None of them told me whether Delphine had kept down a meal or whether Kieran’s shoulder had worsened after Marrow hurt him.
By the second morning, the bread on my tray had already begun to harden at the edges. I wrapped it in the clean corner of my napkin and put it in my pocket.
Marrow arrived shortly after midday.
He opened the door himself and waited in the corridor. “Moreau has been approved for a supervised visit.”
I was on my feet before he finished.
“How is she?”
“The healer says she is stable.”
“Is she awake? Has she eaten? Does she know I’m coming?”
Marrow met my eyes. “She ate this morning. She has been asking when you would come.”
It was enough to get me into the corridor without arguing over the guard who fell into step behind us.
The infirmary lay above the junction where the supply cart had first caught Hale’s attention. Its walls carried the same water-light as the occupied levels, but the air smelled of boiled linen, bitter herbs, and the sharp spirits the healers used to clean their instruments.
Marrow stopped outside a narrow room at the end of the ward.
“The door remains open. The healer stays.”
“And you?”
“In the corridor.”
It was more privacy than I had expected. I went in before he could reconsider it.
Delphine lay beneath two gray blankets with her injured arm resting on a folded cloth. Someone had washed her hair and trimmed the worst of the uneven ends. She was still painfully thin, but there was color in her face that had not been there in Wing C.
She smiled when she saw me.
It was the same hesitant smile she had given me across the dining hall at Zenith Hall.
“You didn’t disappear,” she said.
“I considered it. The corridor was inconvenient.”
Her smile widened.
A healer sat at a table near the wall, grinding something with a stone pestle. He glanced up when I approached the bed, then returned to his work.
I took the bread from my pocket and unwrapped it.
Delphine looked at it, then at me. “You brought me contraband bread.”
“It survived a rigorous inspection.”
“Meaning no one checked your pockets.”
“Their mistake.”
I broke the bread and handed her the softer half.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. I remembered Delphine worrying bread apart because she could not eat it, the empty space other students had left around her, and the small wave she nearly took back when she saw me coming.
She took a bite.
“Still terrible,” she said.
“The Tower hasn’t improved it.”
I sat beside her. “Does it hurt?”
Her gaze moved to the linen around her wrist. “Less now. The healer says the breaks aren’t spreading.”
“Will they heal?”
The pestle stopped against the bowl.
The healer answered from his table. “The skin will. I can’t tell you what the Mark will do.”
Delphine looked unsurprised. She had heard the answer before.
“What did the readers do?” I asked.
She set the bread on the blanket. “They fixed silver leads along my arm and tried to draw light through them. Each time the Mark faded, they reset the instruments and tried again. On the last attempt, the line split.”
My stomach tightened. “They called that recovery.”
“They changed the name whenever I asked them to stop.”
I wanted to ask the healer why anyone had allowed it. He had not been the one in that room. Delphine was tired enough without watching me spend my anger on the nearest person in Tower gray.
She reached across the blanket and took my hand.
“Something happened when you found me,” she said.
“What?”
“The Mark moved.”
I looked at the bandaged wrist between us.
“During the readings?”
“When you held me. The pain had been in the same place for months. Then it pulled toward your hand.”
The healer had stopped grinding again. He watched us openly now.
“Did you tell him?” I asked.
“I wanted to tell you first.”
I turned her hand carefully, keeping my fingers below the linen. Nothing changed beneath my touch. Her pulse beat faintly against my thumb.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I.” Delphine watched my face. “But you’ve kept asking what your Mark can do. I thought you should know when it did something.”
My throat tightened.
“I won’t try anything while I’m guessing,” I said. “Not after what they did to you.”
“I’m not asking you to guess.”
“What are you asking?”
She glanced at the healer, then back at me. “Find out what happened. If you think you can do something without hurting me, come back and ask.”
I closed my hand around hers. “All right.”
We sat that way until the healer resumed grinding the herbs.
I told her Kieran had been recovering before the breach, though I had no news from the two days since. I told her Hale had found the ration route and Caspian had overturned the cart. At that, she gave a quiet laugh.
“Caspian Ashford overturned a supply cart.”
“It was surprisingly graceful.”
“He used to make the entire dining hall nervous by setting down a cup.”
“He’s broadened his range.”
Her laughter faded, but some of its warmth stayed in her face.
“And Lior?” she asked.
“Rev’s grandmother expected the letter to reach him within a week. I never received proof that it did.”
Delphine rubbed her thumb over my knuckles. “He’ll have asked after me loudly.”
“That is exactly what you told him to do.”
“He was always good at the loud part.”
Marrow appeared at the open door.
“The visit is over.”
I looked toward the corridor. “How long was that?”
“Longer than the administrator approved.”
The healer made a small sound into his bowl that might have concealed a laugh.
I stood but kept Delphine’s hand.
“When can I come back?”
Marrow’s expression remained guarded. “Her condition will be reviewed again in three days. If the healer approves, I’ll submit the visit request that afternoon.”
Delphine squeezed my hand. “Go. Before he remembers how stern he’s supposed to be.”
Marrow stepped aside to let me pass.
I gave Delphine the rest of the bread and let her go.
In the corridor, Marrow waited until the guard had moved several paces ahead.
“The administrator has made the separation permanent during unsupervised hours,” he said. “The four of you will receive one supervised hour together each week. Records access is revoked.”
“And Delphine?”
“Separate visits, while the healer approves them.”
“What did the administrator want?”
“She wanted the four of you kept in full isolation and Moreau returned to Wing C once she was stable.” Marrow started walking. “I objected to both.”
I followed him as far as the junction.
“Delphine’s Mark moved when I held her in Wing C.”
Marrow stopped.
“The healer heard her tell me,” I continued. “Before anyone decides that means she needs another reading, I want Hale.”
“Why Hale?”
“Because he taught suppression at the Hall. He knows the difference between controlling a Mark and forcing it.”
Marrow glanced toward the guard ahead of us. “You will not attempt anything on Moreau without the healer present.”
“I’m not attempting anything on her until I understand what happened.”
He resumed walking. “I’ll send Hale to your room.”
Hale was brought to my room that evening with a guard behind him. Marrow ordered the man to remain in the corridor. The door stayed open.
He looked tired. I had expected that. When I told him Delphine had eaten and argued with me about the bread, his shoulders lowered.
Hale sat in the room’s only chair. “I thought we might find proof she had been here. I didn’t think we would find her.”
“You found the ration route.”
“After she had been in that cell for months.” He rubbed one hand over his face. “I spent too long looking for a record. I should have watched who they were feeding.”
I sat on the edge of the bed across from him. “Kieran needed you that night.”
“I know. Staying with him was the right choice.” Hale lowered his hand. “I still wish I had reached Wing C before the guards did.”
Hale rested his forearms on his knees. “Tell me exactly what Delphine felt.”
I described the pain pulling toward my palm and the way it had stopped when I released her. Hale asked whether any of my lines had brightened, whether I had felt heat, and whether the response returned when I held her hand in the infirmary.
“Nothing happened today,” I said.
Hale exhaled slowly. “Better than provoking it again. But one response gives us almost nothing to work from.”
I rolled back my sleeve. All three lines lay quiet in the water-light.
“Can I help her?”
“I don’t know.” Hale leaned forward but did not touch my wrist. “The readers pulled at a damaged Mark until it broke. Whatever you do, it cannot begin with pulling.”
“Then where does it begin?”
“Before you reach for Delphine again, you learn what your Mark feels like at the instant before it touches another,” he said. “You hold there. Then you withdraw.”
“Using whose Mark?”
Hale pushed up his sleeve. The rain-dark line along his forearm showed clearly in the pale light.
“Mine.”
My gaze lifted to his. “If I hurt you—”
“I’ll tell you to stop.”
“They told Delphine to stop too.”
His expression tightened. “Then you stop the first time I say it.”
He lowered his sleeve while the guard was looking toward the junction.
“Not tonight,” Hale said. “Not without Kieran and Caspian knowing what we intend to do.”
The four of us had one supervised hour at the end of the week.
After Hale left, I kept my sleeve rolled up and studied his rain-dark line until the supper hatch opened.