“Then I plan to get more.”
Rev opened the door a fraction and looked into the passage.
“We should leave before that basin blows its lid entirely.”
Aldric slid the folder back into the box.
Before the lid closed, I saw the bottom page.
A different name had been written there in dark ink.
DELPHINE MOREAU.
My breath caught.
Aldric closed the box.
“Not today,” he said.
“Is she alive?”
Aldric said nothing.
Rev’s hand found my sleeve.
“Astra,” she said. “Door.”
The covered basin clicked again, louder.
This time, beneath the tied cloth, the water lit.
Silver-white.
Waiting.
I let Rev pull me into the passage before I could mistake panic for bravery.
30
The Mark answered while I was laying out staves for first hour.
Pain cut clean across my forearm. For one breath, I was not in the salle at all. I was in a room of old paper and covered water, with Astra’s hand at her chest and grief moving through her so sharply my Mark reached for her before I could stop it.
I didn’t know what Aldric had shown her.
I knew only that whatever Aldric had shown her had hurt.
The stave slipped from my hand and hit the floor hard enough for three students in the corridor to look in.
“Instructor?” one of them asked.
“Get to your classes,” I growled.
The Mark stayed bright beneath my sleeve.
My family had called that brightness failure before I was old enough to understand what had failed.
Alistair Hale had died for answering a Star-Marked woman. By ten, I had learned the lesson his death was meant to teach.
