“You’re guarding something, and she likes to hand out secrets. And you’re angry, which is an effect Verraine often has on people.”
“Am I really that obvious?”
“Only to someone looking.”
“And you’re always looking.”
“Yes. I told you, I notice everything.”
He didn’t apologize for it, which was becoming one of his more infuriating qualities.
I stepped into the salle.
The floor had been swept. A fresh chalk line crossed the center boards, straight enough to look personal.
“That for me?”
“Yes.”
“You knew I’d come.”
“I thought you might.”
“That’s a lot of chalk for might.”
He set the stave against the rack.
“You don’t like having nowhere to put anger. I can sense it in you.”
I looked at the line.
“Cosima gave me a notebook.”
“I assumed she gave you something dangerous.”
“It says suppression is obedience waiting to fail.”
His thumb pressed into the worn grip of the stave.
“That sounds like Verraine.”
“It sounds like you.”
He accepted that without giving me the satisfaction of agreement or disagreement.
I crossed to the chalk line and stopped with my toes just short of it.
“Your Mark is calling mine,” I said.
Hale’s gaze stayed on me.
“Yes.”
“And yours?”
“My Mark is answering.”
He made no attempt to soften it.
