Someone knocked before I could decide whether throwing Kieran’s apple into the basin was a bad idea.
When I opened the door, Cosima stood in the corridor.
She looked at me. My messy hair, my swollen lips.
She had survived too many injuries in this school for her to mistake this one.
For one second, I saw it hurt her.
The knowledge that Caspian had been with me. Not her.
Then she looked past me to the dress box.
“You brought reinforcements,” I said.
“I brought competence,” Cosima said.
Rev leaned slightly to see past me into the room. Her gaze found the dress box.
I stepped aside and they came in. Cosima went straight to the box. Rev closed the door and turned the lock with the air of someone who considered locks personal suggestions.
“The basin told me to remain in quarters until attended,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Well, we are attending,” Rev said.
“I doubt you were what it meant.”
“They should have specified then.”
Cosima lifted the dress from the tissue.
For once, she did not speak immediately.
Her hands moved over the altered shoulders and the seams. Her face stayed composed, but her thumb paused at one stitch near the left armhole.
“You left no trace of the band.”
“That is the whole point of removing evidence.”
Rev crossed to the window and tugged the curtain closed another inch.
“What are we hiding from?” I asked.
“Anyone bored enough to notice three girls and a dead woman’s dress.”
“So everyone.”
“Exactly.”
Cosima held the dress up against me without asking.
I let her.
The silk brushed my collarbone. My Mark stirred under my sleeve, then stopped as if confused by the absence of the thing meant to smother it.
Cosima noticed.
“Again,” she said.
