Maybe he felt the same way.
A moment later, the door opened.
Linden acknowledged me and ignored Caspian. “Verita.”
My palms slipped against the lining of my coat pockets, damp with sweat.
I tried to peer past him, but Linden filled the doorway too completely for that. All I could see was the edge of a table, the back of a chair, and a strip of dark floor where the light did not reach.
Behind me, I heard Caspian take one breath too sharply.
He stepped forward.
Linden raised a hand, and Caspian stopped so hard the motion looked painful.
My Mark warmed under my sleeve.
It was smaller than the reach from the basin, but warm enough that I was terrified Linden might see.
“Ashford,” Linden said. “You were not invited to attend.”
“I’m not here as prefect.”
“You are prefect whenever the Council requires you to be.”
“Then require me to stand witness.”
Cosima’s words came back to me:He’ll try to stand with you, where everyone can see it.
He couldn’t stop this. But the boy I had thought hated me had come anyway, and he was standing as close to my side as they would let him.
“You may stand outside,” Linden said. “You may not enter. You may not interrupt. You may not communicate with her.”
Caspian’s jaw worked.
“Understood.”
“See that it stays understood.”
The door closed between us.
The last thing I saw before it shut was his face: furious, pale, and barely controlled.
Beyond the door, the room came clear.
A long oak table. Linden at the center with a notebook open in front of him. Caswell near the door. Quill at the far end, hands folded, looking less like a man attending an interrogation than one waiting to see which answer would become useful.
One chair waited opposite Quill.
I went to it without being told and sat.
Linden began at once.
“You will answer the questions asked. Nothing else. You are not being asked to consent to anything beyond the answers you give today. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Is your name Astra Verita?”
