“No one enters without my permission.”
“Because you are Caspian Ashford.”
“Because the school assumes my father has already done the watching.”
“Does he?”
“Not in here.”
“How do you know?”
His gaze went to the covered basin, then back to me.
“Because I made certain.”
The room smelled faintly of the clean bitter soap used in the upper corridors. There were books on the desk, a coat thrown over one chair with a carelessness so unexpected from him that I looked at it twice, and a wooden box near the basin.
The box was closed.
He saw me see it.
“My father’s cuffs,” he said.
“I hadn’t asked.”
“You were going to.”
“I was deciding whether I wanted the answer.”
“I’m not wearing them tomorrow.”
I looked at his wrists.
Bare.
The skin there seemed too intimate, which was ridiculous. I had seen wrists before. I had two of my own. They had not previously caused me trouble.
Well, until the Mark.
Caspian’s Mark showed on his right forearm: dark lines, settled and severe, the kind of Mark that looked as if it had been trained to stand straight.
Mine pulled under my sleeve.
His answered.
The dark lines shifted toward me by a fraction, and Caspian stepped back as if the movement had tugged him with it.
“No,” I said.
He froze.
“If our Marks are too close, the bond may start before you mean it to.”
“Then say that.”
His eyes met mine.
Dark gray, tinged with blue brighter than I’d ever seen it before when he looked at me.
