I left the dining hall with my Mark burning under my sleeve and the name following me out.
Zenith Tower.
10
The stolen blanket hadn’t made the room warm.
It had only made the cold more specific: toes, shoulders, the place between my shoulder blades where the wool had slipped while I slept.
I was awake and shivering when the basin filled.
One moment, the corner of the room was dark and the basin was dry.
The next, water stood black to the rim.
I rolled my eyes, grumbled, “This again?” and watched as pale words wrote themselves across the surface.
Public reading. Main hall. Second bell.
Then the water cleared.
It gave me nothing except the hour, the room, and enoughtime to wonder whether public reading meant I would be read or only made to watch.
At breakfast, the dining hall had gone too quiet.
There were still cups, chairs, knives against plates, the low sound of other first-years pretending they weren’t afraid of what second bell would bring. Upperclassmen stood in tight groups, whispering while trying to look like they had no reason to whisper.
I looked for Delphine before I looked for bread.
The third table was empty where she should have been.
For a second, I stood there holding my tray like it might give me instructions on what to do next.
Delphine had been the only person in this room who waved when she saw me coming.
Barely.
Self-consciously.
Like friendship was a thing she hadn’t quite learned yet.
Just like me.
I sat in the chair where I always sat, alone, and didn’t eat because my stomach was churning.
At five minutes before the second bell, I followed the crowd to the Main Hall.
It was on the south side of the building, on the ground floor, with a door on three sides and a stone wall at the fourth.
The fourth wall was the west wall.
Names had been carved into the dark stone there, cut deep enough that centuries had not weathered them away.
Some names had dates beside them.
Some had none.
Nothing indicated what the wall recorded.
