“Verita.”
The women lifted the empty outer wrapping and left the box on my bed. Caswell followed them into the corridor. He paused at the threshold.
“There are fewer wrong answers when a student accepts an honor in the spirit in which it is offered.”
“Sounds like a better deal for the people doing the offering.”
The door closed without a response.
For a while I stood where I was, the brooch still in my palm, and stared at the black box on the bed.
The box did not move.
Neither did I.
Then the Mark shifted.
My wrist ached toward it. Not toward the silk. Toward whatever had been hidden inside it.
“No,” I said.
The Mark ignored me.
I crossed the room and touched the Council seal with one finger.
Nothing happened.
Which meant either the box did not know when it was touched, or it was waiting until touch became convenient for someone else.
Cosima had told me to be wary. Juno had shown me why.Either of them would have been better than me, alone with my mother’s dress and all my worst impulses.
In the end, I opened the box.
The clasps gave without protest.
“That seems suspicious,” I muttered.
I touched the tissue instead of the dress, and folded it back with two fingers. The sewn wren appeared first. Then the collar. Then the sleeves.
Then I saw what was wrong.
The dress was old. Carefully kept, beautifully mended in places, but old. The silk had softened with time. The silver thread had darkened where the branches curved beneath the arms.
And the left sleeve was brighter.
At the wrist, someone had added a narrow band of new embroidery, silver over green, so fine it would have looked original to anyone who wasn’t looking too closely. The thread was brighter than the rest. Too bright. A line of tiny stitches ran where the old sleeve had been opened and closed again.
Exactly where my Mark would sit.
I took one step back.
The sewn wren did not lie flat.
One silver wing lifted from the silk, held down by a single loose thread. I slipped my finger beneath it and felt paper.
A folded note.
If I had waited for the fitting, one of the women would have found it first.
