I wanted to ask what happens next.
I wanted to ask whether girls ever came back from wherever the doors with the carved symbols led.
I wanted to ask a dozen things.
But Delphine wasn’t the one to ask.
Instead, I asked the only question I could think of that Delphine might have an answer to.
“You said you have a brother?”
“I do.”
“Tell me about him.”
Delphine considered me for a moment, then decided I was trustworthy enough to have a conversation with.
“His name is Lior. He’s twelve. He thinks everything in the world will always go his way.”
“Terrible condition. Optimism.”
Delphine almost smiled.
“He has a Mark on the back of his hand. The village Oracle said it would settle by thirteen.”
“And do you believe the village Oracle?”
“My parents do.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
She looked down at the bread in her hands.
“The Oracle was wrong about me. He said my Mark would be strong and true. My parents aren’t poor, but they aren’t rich enough to buy a second opinion. So when the same Oracle said Ibelonged at Zenith, they sent me here.”
“And now?”
“Now Zenith is telling me I’m out of time.”
The bread stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Out of time for what?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. They said I’ll have a quiet transfer if my Mark keeps fading.”
“Transfer where?”
“They didn’t say.”
The boy beside us turned a page in his book.
I didn’t think he’d been reading. He would have turned several pages by now if he had been.
Delphine noticed too. Neither of us said anything about it. We just exchanged a look.
“I’m writing to Lior tonight,” she said.
“Why not your parents?”
