It still hurt to be useless.
A sound came from the doorway.
Aldric stood there with his coat unbuttoned and a file under one arm. He looked at my open sleeve, then at the chalk line beneath my boots.
“You saw her,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Did you move toward her?”
“No.”
Aldric studied me for a moment.
“Then you did the difficult thing.”
The praise scraped.
He noticed that too. He had an irritating talent for noticing what men did not say.
“That sounds like something people say when they want obedience to feel noble.”
“Maybe,” Aldric said. “But if Quill wanted you to follow her down that corridor, you just disappointed him.”
I looked toward the racks of staves.
“Quill profits if I go to her.”
“Obviously.”
“And if I disappear from her entirely?”
“Less.”
I almost laughed. There was no humor in it, so I spared us both.
Aldric set the file on the bench.
“The fitting is tomorrow morning.”
“I know.”
“You will not be there.”
The Mark tightened under my skin.
“I am not a fool, Aldric.”
“I have seen wiser men than you fall victim to their baser instincts, Hale.”
I recognized the mark he aimed for. Alistair. And everyone in my family before him who had made the mistake I was desperately trying not to make.
Astra’s line moved faintly through me then, distant but awake. Fear, yes. Anger. Beneath both, the stubborn heat of a girl who had been handed a trap and was already looking for a way to escape.
“She has help,” Aldric said.
“Help can be used against her.”
