As if a person became easier to own once the right noun had been placed over her.
The girl my father had been speaking of since I was fourteen without ever telling me she would have a face, a voice, and a way of looking at me as if my name did not impress her half as much as I thought it should.
When they read my Verse, I thought duty would make a shape around the future. Hard enough to stand inside. Clean enough to call safety.
I had not expected wanting to ruin the shape before I ever reached it.
The letter lay open under my hand.
Beside it, the cuffs sat in their box.
My father had given them to me at fourteen. I had worn them every day since.
Tonight, for the first time, I saw the trick of them.
Leather. Buckles. A man’s wrist taught to mistake compliance for honor.
My Mark burned brighter.
Across the room, the window reflected the desk, the letter, the box, and me sitting behind all three as if I had arranged myself for inspection.
I rose.
The window of my rooms faced the quad. First-year prefects inherited that view: west hall, distant tower, gravel pale under moonlight. Nine generations of Ashford men had watched the school from this glass and mistaken the view for control.
The clock tower cut a black line through the moonlit quad.
Someone stood on the roof.
At first, I thought it was Marsh. It was his tower, after all. Hisbad habit. His favorite place to pretend the school had not found him.
Then the figure turned.
The form was too small. The posture all wrong.
Astra.
A second figure moved behind her.
Marsh.
I couldn’t see his face from this distance. I didn’t need to. I knew the shape of him: one shoulder held wrong, one hand braced on the doorframe, carelessness arranged carefully enough to fool people who wanted to be fooled.
He looked past her once.
Toward the quad.
Toward my window.
Then he stepped back.
The inkwell broke under my hand.
I had not meant to touch it. Had not realized I had.
Glass cracked and ink spread across the desk.
Across my father’s letter.
