She wrote quickly, not in the official hand I had seen on Council pages, but in the looser one she used when she was writing the truth.
I watched the pen move.
“What did you say?”
“That Selene Verita’s formal dress arrived in your room before supper. That you brought it to me unopened by anyone but the delivery staff and yourself. That the left sleeve contains post-inventory alterations inconsistent with the age and wear of the original garment.”
“That’s a very tidy way to say they delivered me a trap.”
“Tidy things survive scrutiny.”
“Do they?”
She lifted her head.
“More often than screaming and drawing attention does.”
That was possibly a dig pointed at me, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Cosima tore the page from the notebook. Something I’d never imagined I’d see her do. She treated her notebooks like they were more precious than gold or silk.
I stared at her.
“Did you just damage your own notebook?”
“Try to survive the shock of it.”
She folded the page twice and held it out.
“Put this with Caspian’s note.”
“Won’t they search me?”
“Probably. So don’t keep both in a place they’ll be found.”
I took the page.
“Where would you put it?”
Cosima looked at the dress.
“In the box.”
“The box that potentially knows when it is opened according to Caswell?”
“The box we just opened. No one’s come running, have they? You have got to stop believing everything you are told, Verita.”
She lifted the tissue at the bottom of the box and showed me a gap between the inner lining and the leather wall.
“There. Slide it flat.”
I did.
The paper disappeared.
Cosima closed the tissue over it.
“If the dress is inspected, my note stays with the garment. If the alteration disappears, the note says it existed. If they find the note, they will know someone saw the sleeve before the fitting.”
