I looked up.
She had tears in her eyes.
She tried to blink them away and failed.
She hated that she failed, I could tell.
I hated that I’d caused them.
“If you do this for her,” she said, “do it because it is right. Do not do it because she might look at you the way you want her to afterward.”
I stared at the floor because she was right.
“I know, Cosima.”
“Do you?”
I thought of Astra, wrist pressed under her sleeve, pain opening because accepting me meant losing the others.
I thought of the dining hall, Astra making a sound because Marsh and I had both stepped too close to becoming evidence.
I thought of my father’s note.
Wear the cuffs.
“I am trying to understand. That is the best I can do,” I said.
Cosima folded her stolen paper and put it back inside her sleeve.
Her hands were steady now.
The steadiness hurt to watch more than the tears had.
Then she went to the door.
“Cosima.”
She stopped.
“Thank you.”
Her back stayed to me.
“Do not make me regret helping the two of you become better people,” she said. “It is unpleasant work.”
“I’ll try.”
But she was already leaving. The door closed behind her.
I stood alone with the closed box, my father’s note, and my wrists bare.
My hands were still my hands.
That was the first surprise.
The second came when the basin lit again.
No words formed.
