The bond answered, low and immediate.
He read the date.
Then his expression changed in a way I had never seen before.
Not shock.
Anger taking its time because it wanted to arrive correctly.
“After,” he said.
The room tilted around that yes.
Kieran’s voice came from above me, stripped of humor. “How long after?”
Caspian looked at him.
“Three days.”
Three days.
Delphine had been alive and in this room for at least three days after they took her.
Alive enough to carve.
Alone enough to need to.
I put my hand over the cut marks.
The wood was rough against my palm.
My Mark brightened at my wrist.
All three men felt it.
Caspian’s breath changed beside me. Kieran’s shoulder lit through his coat. Hale turned from the far door at last.
“Astra,” Hale said.
That was all.
My name, spoken like a hand held out across a room he would not cross unless I asked.
I didn’t ask.
There was more under the bench.
I shifted my hand and found the next cut.
Three short lines, then one long one.
A mark.
I had seen it before.
At Room 107, cut into the frame.
At the west door, almost hidden beneath older scratches.
