“It was.”
My Mark moved again.
This time, it felt different.
It felt like three hands closing around my wrist in the dark.
Juno opened the chamber door herself.
33
The basin in my room lit at the same moment the box arrived.
My father preferred timing that could be mistaken for fate.
The basin stood in the corner beneath the narrow window, black marble and Ashford-issued. My father had placed it here before I arrived at fourteen.
An Ashford reads himself,he had said.
An Ashford does not wait to be told what he is.
At the time, I had believed him.
The water brightened silver-white.
Words formed across the surface.
Alignment formal preparationshave begun.
The words vanished, and the knock came before the last silver thread had sunk.
I opened the door to find Caswell standing in the corridor with a wooden box in his hands.
Ashwood, darkened with oil, the brass corners polished until they caught the corridor light.
I knew the box.
I had seen it in my father’s dressing room every year on the morning of the Ashford winter reception. I had seen stewards carry it with both hands. I had seen my father open it only after the room had emptied, as if the cuffs inside required privacy.
Caswell held it out.
“From Lord Ashford.”
I did not take it immediately.
Caswell waited without blinking. He had the patience of a man who had spent his life handing people things they did not want but would be forced to claim.
“He has arrived already?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“Then the box traveled faster than he did.”
“Lord Ashford sent it ahead with a steward.”
Why wasn’t I surprised?
My father had always preferred instruction to affection. Instruction always came first.
