It was heavier now that I knew what had been sewn into it.
I carried Selene Verita’s dress, my mother’s dress, into the corridor and locked Room 114 behind me.
Two first-years turned at the end of the hall and saw the box in my arms. One looked away. The other kept staring.
Let someone see.
I walked toward the east side with my mother’s brooch in my pocket, Caspian’s note hidden against my coat, and the dress held in both hands like evidence I had not yet learned how to use.
35
By the second corridor, my arms hurt.
By the third, enough of the school had seen me carrying my mother’s dress to make pretending otherwise impossible.
Conversations thinned as I passed. A woman in faculty gray took one look at the black box and found urgent business elsewhere. I assumed to report on me.
Let them watch. Let them whisper.
No one had forbidden me from leaving my room with the dress. Only leaving the academy with it.
And if the Council wanted my mother’s dress to become a public spectacle, I was willing to begin early.
The upperclassmen quarters were on the east floor, near thetower where Cosima held court, and the east floor swallowed sound better than the other corridors. Even my shoes seemed to understand they had entered a place where money carried comfort.
Cosima must have heard my footsteps anyway. She was already standing in her open doorway.
She took in the box in my arms, my face, and the corridor behind me.
“You carried it here.”
“I think that’s pretty obvious.”
“Through the main corridor.”
“Well, I wasn’t taking the long way. It’s heavy.”
“Yes, and highly visible.”
Cosima held my gaze for one beat longer than comfort required.
Then she stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Her room looked exactly as I should have expected: neat enough to be ascetic, with a wide bed and down pillows, a writing table, two chairs, and no object anywhere that had not been chosen to survive inspection. A small marble basin stood in the corner, dark. On the table lay three notebooks, a clean pen, and a folded square of cloth.
She shut the door.
“Set it there.”
I set the box on her table. The brass clasps knocked against the wood.
Cosima’s eyes met mine.
“You found something.”
I nodded.
