“That was almost supportive.”
“I’m growing.”
She tore the roll in half and pushed the larger piece toward me.
“Eat while walking.”
I took the bread because arguing with Rev was an activity for people with more energy than sense. And my energy was running low after another mostly sleepless night.
“What would I do without you?”
“Starve, most likely,” Rev muttered.
The east tower common room was empty when I arrived except for Cosima Verraine, as expected.
She sat at the long table with a Council page in front of her and her own notebook closed beside it. Her hair was pinned perfectly. Her dress collar framed the gold Mark at her throat. Nothing about her looked like a girl who had ever been startled by a feeling.
Then she saw my face.
“Juno sent you,” she said.
“Everyone here is very good at taking the fun out of an entrance.”
I put the folded page on the table.
Cosima didn’t touch it right away.
“She wrote to me.”
“Apparently she wrote a question she could not ask in her own hand.”
That made Cosima look at the page.
She unfolded it, and I watched her read.
For the first line, her face remained perfectly neutral.
By the second, she had bitten her lower lip.
By the third, all color had drained from her face, which wasn’t exactly heartening.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Cosima folded the page again along the exact same creases.
“Caspian is vulnerable to inherited compliance.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means the Council will not only use him against you. They will use you to finish him.”
I sat across from her.
“Juno said you know the language they will use before they use it.”
“Juno says more about me than I like to other people.”
“Is that one true?”
