“Why?”
“I am teaching it because the alternative is worse than being asked to stop.”
“What’s the alternative?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I asked anyway because if there was one thing no one had ever managed to teach me, it was how to keep my mouth shut.
“Caswell’s classes will make your Mark answer. If you cannot read the negative, you will show the Council things you don’t know you are showing, and which you don’t want them to know.”
“Fantastic.”
“I would rather you see first.”
“And not tell anyone who taught me?”
“Not Caspian Ashford if he asks. Not Hale if he asks. Not the Verraine girl.”
“Cosima.”
“Yes, Cosima.”
“Why does Cosima know more than I do, anyway?”
“Cosima has been here three years. She has reasons of her own and methods of her own. I do not tell my students one another’s reasons or methods.”
It wasn’t exactly a satisfying answer, but I saw her point. I didn’t want her talking to Cosima about me, either.
“All right.”
“Lower your hand. Look at the basin.”
I did as she said.
The basin held water that hadn’t been there yesterday. Or maybe it had been there last time too, settled into a shape I hadn’t known how to see. Today it sat slightly above the rim, held by the same tension but higher.
She placed the leather-bound book on the rim of the basin.
“This is a ledger the school keeps and does not advertise.”
“Those are always the most interesting books.”
“It is older than the school’s current cosmology. Most Oracles do not have access to it. I have access because my advisor’s advisor’s advisor was its keeper in his time. The school assumes the ledger is sealed in the pre-founding stacks.”
She beckoned.
“Lean over. Look at this entry.”
I did.
The entry was dated 23 years ago.
The handwriting was formal, the hand the school’s records of that decade had been kept in. The entry had a name: Selene Verita. The school’s symbol classification next to the name was unresolved. The notation of withdrawal was voluntary.
I read the name. Then I blinked and read it again.
Juno watched me, her expression unreadable.
“You know the name,” she said.
