Kieran closed his eyes.
When he opened them, whatever pain he had been hiding was back where he kept it.
“You should go down before you and me and the tower becomes a story someone else gets to tell.”
“And you?”
“I’m already a story people tell.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“You have no idea.”
“I might, actually.”
His smile came back, but only at one corner.
“Yes,” he said. “You might.”
I went to the roof door.
At the top of the stair, I turned.
Kieran was still by the rail, wind blowing his locks back away from his face, left hand braced on the stone, right shoulder held stiff under his coat, a faint ring of green dampening it.
I wanted to ask again about that but I didn’t.
Tonight wasn’t the night.
“Good night, Kieran,” I said.
“Good night, Astra.”
I went down with the brooch over my heart and the roof wind still inside my lungs.
19
The basin woke me at five-fifty.
Not with Juno’s silver-white light.
Gold moved under the water instead, thin as wire, writing itself across the surface in a hand precise enough to look irritated by moisture.
East tower. Six. Alone.
The words held for three breaths.
Then the water went dark.
I sat up with my coat still on and the brooch still pinned over my heart.
Sleep had happened to me at some point. Barely enough to count as rest. Enough that my mouth remembered Kieran before the rest of me rememberedQuill.
The brooch was cold against my shirt.
Cosima hadn’t come to my door.
She had sent gold letters through my basin and left me two minutes to decide whether I was the sort of girl who obeyed gold letters from a girl who had twice betrayed me.
