I wouldn’t have trusted it if she was doing it for me.
“So this is help.”
“This is preparation.”
She pulled the small notebook from beneath the Council page and set it between us.
The cover was dark green, worn at the corners. Ordinary enough to be overlooked. Dangerous enough that Cosima did not take her fingers off it right away.
“You know your Mark is pulling three ways,” she said.
My wrist warmed under my sleeve.
“Yes. Juno told me it’s Untethered. Kieran called it Star-Marked.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to perform the revelation.”
“A loss for everyone, I’m sure.”
Cosima ignored that.
“The formal is designed to make one of those lines look inevitable.”
“Caspian’s.”
“Caspian Ashford. The Council’s cleanest answer. His father’s cleanest answer. Quill’s cleanest page.”
My hand went to the brooch.
“Quill said consent is required.”
“Consent is requested.”
I hated the difference immediately.
Cosima leaned back in her chair.
“They’ll dress you beautifully. They’ll seat you beside him. The witnesses will smile as if they’ve been invited to an honor instead of an argument. By the time they bring you to the Convergence chamber, half the room will already believe refusing would be ungrateful.”
“And then they’ll ask whether I consent to stabilization.”
“That is the language.”
“If I refuse?”
“They ask again.”
“If I keep refusing?”
Cosima sighed.
“Then they decide whether your Mark has answered more clearly than your mouth.”
For a moment, I heard nothing but the sconce ticking in the wall.
“That isn’t consent.”
“Correct.”
