I had learned a little.
Annoying, but there it was.
After that, I went to the clock tower.
The stair tweaked my bad shoulder twice. I used the left hand on the wall and pretended that was a choice. At the roof door, the wedge of wood waited where it always waited, face carved badly into one side, smiling with an optimism I had never trusted.
The roof was empty.
I sat with my back against the low stone and looked at the apple tree beyond the west wall, the one the school pretended was decorative because admitting it fed half the east kitchen would have required generosity in the records.
Astra had won.
Astra had bled.
Caspian had cleaned the blood.
The third thing was worst of all.
Because he had been gentle with her. He’d done the thing she needed. A thing I hadn’t even thought of.
I could hate a man for being careless with her.
It was harder to hate him for being kind when he didn’t have to be.
My shoulder ached again.
I pressed my left hand over it and breathed until the ache became a numbness, which I could stand.
The bond had shifted after the assessment. I had felt it from the lower corridor: Astra pulling something inward, clumsy and brave, and Caspian answering before he knew he had answered.
Hale was in it too.
Hale was always in it now, quiet as a whisper you can’t quite catch and twice as difficult to ignore.
I had known this wouldn’t be simple.
Caspian was expected.
I thought he could be managed. Maybe he still could.
But Hale too…
At the edge of the roof, wind moved over the stone and dried the apple juice on my palm.
I looked at my empty hand.
Then I laughed.
Not because anything was funny. I was still dying. Astra might still be the only way to stop it.
I still hadn’t told her.
I laughed because I had planned the afternoon for three days,and in the end the best thing I could do was leave fruit outside a closed door.
I didn’t know why I bothered rehearsing anymore.
Except habit.
