The basin kept moving behind her, but she didn’t say anything else.
I wanted to press, but I could tell from her expression that it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
So I left.
Down the three flights into a corridor full of students who, unlike me, knew what came next.
No one looked at me.
Last night they had stared. This morning they had already decided I wasn’t worth their attention. Or they were pretending I wasn’t.
I went back to Room 114, flopped on the bed, and stared at my wrist.
The Mark was still there. The lines hadn’t faded. They had moved again, though, while I’d been on the stairs—settled into a new arrangement that was not the one they had been in when I left Juno’s room. I watched them for a full minute. They didn’t move again while I watched.
The school still moved outside my door: footsteps, bells, a voice once, then nothing. No one came to explain the reading. No one came to tell me where I was supposed to be next or to reassure me that the lines on my wrist were normal.
I already knew they weren’t.
I could have gone back to the dining hall, but anxiety had twisted my stomach into a knot.
The school still moved outside my door: footsteps, bells, a voice once, then nothing. No one came to explain the reading. No one came to tell me where I was supposed to be next or to reassure me that the lines on my wrist were normal.
I already knew they weren’t.
Laying there, I thought of the shop. I had never loved it. I had never loved the cramped rooms above it either, with the neighbor’s baby crying at all hours through the plaster.
But there, at least, things had been simple.
A customer wanted ribbon. The landlord wanted the rent. The coalman wanted coin before delivery. Here, everything had a rule no one had told me and a record I had not agreed to enter.
The only place I knew here was the dining hall, and I didn’t want to eat.Anxiety had twisted my stomach into a knot.
By afternoon, the light against the wall outside my window had thrown shadows across the polished floor.
A draft ran under the door.
I felt it because I had taken my boots off. The cold touched my foot first. Then the latch moved.
I stood so fast the wool blanket slid off my lap.
A man stood in the doorway.
Everything about him had been arranged before he reached me: the dark coat brushed clean, the silver at his temples cut even, a narrow black folder tucked under one arm.
I squinted at him. “Is knocking not a thing you do here?”
He didn’t acknowledge the question or step inside. He just stood there, which, honestly, made it even more disconcerting.
His eyes drifted to my wrist, and I had the inexplicable urge to pull my sleeve down and cover the Mark.
“My name is Asher Quill,” he finally said. “I am the Headmaster of Zenith Hall. I had not intended to meet you today.”
“Great,” I said. “Well, since you’re here now, maybe you can tell me what I’m doing here.”
Quill frowned.
“I understood your admission had been explained.”
