Different hands. Same answer.
“What is that?” Kieran asked.
“A girl saying she was here,” I said.
Hale’s expressiondarkened.
That told me enough.
“Sadie?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Hale.”
“Some of the marks are older than Sadie.”
Some.
Not all.
The room seemed to shrink.
Caspian reached under the bench on his side and touched another scratch with two careful fingers.
“There are more.”
Kieran moved to the opposite bench.
For once, he didn’t make a joke.
That frightened me more than the lock.
We searched the room slowly.
Anything faster would have felt like insult.
This was not a puzzle.
It was a record no one had meant to preserve.
Initials under the benches. Short marks near the table. One line of numbers scratched into the wall where the lamp shadow hid it. A small crescent cut low into the far door.
Names, some of them.
Kieran found S.C. under the right bench and went quiet.
Hale found a mark I didn’t know but apparently he recognized and closed his eyes.
Caspian found Selene on the inside of the table leg.
He didn’t tell me at first.
But the bond did.
Pain moved through him and reached me before his mouth opened.
I stood.
