Verraine caught him at it.
“Miss Verita,” she said, “the box is heavy.”
Astra’s attention snapped back to her. “I know.”
“Then continue walking.”
Astra obeyed her, which told me more than any report could have. Whatever had happened in Verraine’s room, it had changed the shape of their relationship. They were not friends. They were not allies in any way the Council would recognize. But Verraine had taken one end of the weight, and Astra had let her.
The corridor watched them pass.
When they reached the stair, Astra looked back once. Not at the clerk. At me.
The Pull brushed the inside of a locked door and found the lock already known.
Then she turned the corner and was gone.
The clerk began writing.
I crossed the corridor before he had finished the first line.
“Your station is in the lower salle,” I said.
He looked up too quickly. “Instructor?”
“You are standing in a corridor outside student quarters with a pen in your hand.”
His mouth opened.
“Choose the next sentence you place on that page carefully.”
He chose to crumple up the paper and hand it to me.
Wise.
I left him there and took the west stair down. Not after Astra. Away from her.
By the time I reached the lower level, my Mark still had not settled.
Suppression had rules. Pressure. Breath. Distance. Pain accepted without argument. I knew them well enough to perform them half-asleep. I had performed them at nine years oldwith my father’s hand on my shoulder and my mother outside the door pretending not to hear.
Tonight the rules held only because Astra was not in the room.
In the salle, the lamps were unlit. Evening had put the training floor into shadow. The chalk lines looked paler without students crossing them.
I stood at the center line and let my sleeve fall open.
Not brighter now. Darker. As if the lines had learned that being seen was not the only form of answer.
Astra was carrying her mother’s dress back to a room that could report on her.
By supper, Quill would know the dress had not frightened her into obedience.
Tomorrow they would put her on a platform and try to turn her grief into submission.
I should have been glad she had Verraine.
I was.
