Quill had learned to add a time. Not just ‘now.’
How generous of him.
I stood in the corridor with Juno’s closed door behind me and the message still bright behind my eyes.
Three o’clock gave me twenty-two minutes.
Twenty-two minutes to wash my face, decide whether I looked more frightened with my sleeve up or down, and fail to stop thinking about the three lines the basin had dragged out of me in front of Caswell.
I went to Room 114 anyway.
The room had not improved in my absence.
I washed my face. I pushed my sleeve down. Then up. Then down again.
“Ridiculous,” I told my wrist.
The Mark could not be bothered responding.
At two-fifty-four, I left.
The halls were between hours, which meant they weren’t empty, only pretending they had better things to do than watch me.
By the time I reached the third floor of the south wing, I understood the summons was no longer private.
If it had ever been.
The Headmaster’s office was the third door past the south stair. Polished sconces. Dark wood trim. A red wool runner old enough to look old and new enough to mean someone kept paying for it to look that way.
The door had no nameplate.
Apparently if you needed a nameplate for the Headmaster, you had already failed.
It opened before I knocked.
Linden stood on the other side.
He stepped back just far enough to let me enter.
“Verita. Thank you for joining us.”
“I didn’t know a raincheck was an option or I would have taken one.”
His mouth made it clear he disapproved of that.
Small joys.
Linden closed the door behind me.
The room was too warm.
That was the first thing I noticed. Not the desk, not the books, not the tall windows with their heavy curtains drawn against the afternoon. The heat. The fire had been built high enough to make the air close around my throat, and Quill sat behind the desk as if he had personally decided the room would breathe for both of us.
“Sit,” he said.
So I sat.
The chair was small and wooden, like Juno’s, with a straight back and no arms. No one had meant for a student to relax in it.
