Quill glanced at Linden.
“Leave us.”
Linden gave a curt nod and walked out.
When the door closed, Quill let the silence settle until the fire in the hearth became the loudest thing in the room.
“You were summoned earlier,” he said.
“I was.”
“You did not attend.”
“I attended my Oracle first.”
His fingers rested on the center drawer of his desk.
“Instructor Hale has become unexpectedly attentive.”
A note made in the margin.
“You seem awfully interested in who I spend my time with.”
“I care deeply about the welfare of every student and instructor under this roof.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
Quill’s expression remained mild.
“Particularly lately.”
The fire shifted behind me.
I kept my hands folded in my lap and didn’t look at my wrist.
Quill opened the center drawer and took out a small black case.
He set it between us.
The case was narrow, old, and carefully polished. Whatever was inside had been arranged for me before I entered the room.
That was the first thing that set off a warning bell.
The second was the way Quill watched my face as he lifted the lid.
Inside was a silver brooch.
A wren sat at the center, small enough to fit under the pad of my thumb, wings half-lifted as if it had landed and wasn’t sure it wanted to stick around.
I had never seen it before.
I recognized it anyway.
My mother had told me about the brooch once while buttoning my coat in a room so cold I could see her breath. A wren in an apple tree, she’d said. A foolish little bird with its head tilted like it knew better than everyone else.
I had asked her once where it was.
She had smoothed my hair back from my face and said,I left it somewhere I’ll never go back to, baby.
