Neither of us moved first.
That felt like an answer, though I didn’t know to which question.
“I’ll go to Juno,” I whispered.
His chin dipped once.
“Go to Juno.”
I went to her.
I felt him stay behind me.
That was the cruelest part. Not that he followed.
That he didn’t, and I could feel what it cost him.
Juno’s door opened before I knocked. She stood beside the basin, one hand resting on the rim, her face turned toward me as if she had been listening to the building bring me down the hall.
“Quill summoned me,” I said. “Hale sent me here.”
For the first time since I’d met her, Juno looked surprised.
Only for a second.
Then she said, “Did he? A smarter man than I’d given him credit for.”
She glanced at my sleeve.
“Show me the Mark.”
“Everyone else has seen it today. I’d hate for you to feel left out.”
Her expression didn’t indicate that she found my wit amusing at all.
I pushed up my sleeve.
The Mark looked almost ordinary again. Four lines on my wrist, pale and difficult, arranged as if they had not just humiliated me in front of an entire practicum.
Juno studied it.
“Someone gave you the wrong instruction for your Mark,” she said. “Someone who knew exactly what to say.”
I sat back.
“Cosima,” I hissed.
The room seemed to get smaller around the chair.
“Not surprising.”
“So she knew?”
“Or she suspected.”
I hated that answer because now I would drive myself mad trying to figure out which one it was.
“Juno, what am I?” I asked it plain.
