“What if I don’t have a Mark?”
Juno’s gaze went to the water.
“You do. Or else you wouldn’t be here.”
Then she said, “Please put your right hand on the rim opposite mine. Palm down. Wrist exposed.”
I did as I was told.
The cold of the stone went through my hand and traveled up the bones of my forearm, stopping at my elbow. Juno studied me, but whatever she saw, she didn’t name it.
“Now look at the water.”
I gazed into the basin.
The water did nothing for what felt like a long time. Then it stirred. A line rose in the basin—thin, pale, drawing itself across the surface from where my palm met the rim. Then another line, perpendicular. Then a third, curved this time. A fourth followed more slowly, cutting away from the others as if it had no intention of joining them.
The lines climbed out, found my wrist, and laid themselves on my skin.
They were warm.
I had expected—I don’t know what I had expected, but definitely not this. What I had was four lines: three reaching outward, and one that seemed to belong only to itself.
“Your Mark,” Juno said.
I glanced at the lines again, then back at Juno, who was still staring at the basin, where the water was still moving.
“Are they supposed to??—”
“They are supposed to settle.” Juno frowned. “Yours isn’t.”
She watched the water too long.
When she looked back at me, whatever she had been thinking was gone from her face.
The lines on my wrist moved again.
Not by much. They shifted half a thread. Like a draft I couldn’t feel was working on them. Then they shifted again. Then they came to a rest that wasn’t quite rest—like water at the top of a glass before it spills over.
Junotook her hand off the basin.
“That will be enough for today.”
I blinked. “That’s all?”
“That is more than I was told to write in a first-day report. I will write it anyway.”
“What does it mean?”
“That depends on what your Mark does next.”
For a second, I thought she would say more. Then she chose a different sentence.
“You should return to your room.”
“What were you going to say?”
“Something unhelpful.”
