Burnt sugar.
No pain.
“This doesn’t belong to them,” I said.
“No.”
“Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
His fingers closed around mine.
“Not ever.”
The words were too large for the room.
For once, the room held them anyway.
41
The salle was empty when Astra’s Mark reached through the building.
I was rewrapping the grip on a practice stave. The leather was old, split at one edge, still useful but only if the hand holding it knew where not to press.
The strip went slack in my fingers.
Cold stone and burnt sugar reached me first.
Ashford.
I set the stave on the rack before my hand could close around it hard enough to break something that did not deserve the break.
Astra’s Mark answered him.
The salle held its shape: wood, chalk, old oil, the honest smell of bodies learning impact.
The air did not.
My Mark answered from under my sleeve, heat pulling tight beneath the linen.
Astra’s Mark came after: cold air, wet ink, and the metallic brightness of a storm that had not broken yet.
Her.
Then green apple cut through.
Marsh.
I closed my hand around the strip of leather and held it until the need to move became a thing I could stand beside instead of obey.
Desire came first.
Jealousy followed.
Recognition arrived last and found the place in my guts where discipline had been standing guard.
Ashford was with her. Marsh felt it. I felt it. Somewhere in the upper north corridor, a covered basin was failing to keep the room from knowing what the Marks knew.
I walked to the center line of the salle.
