“You could have started with that.”
“You wouldn’t have understood what it meant.”
I wanted to argue.
I didn’t.
Cosima pushed the notebook the rest of the way across the table.
“This is mine,” she said. “Not the Council’s.”
“Why give it to me?”
“Because Korey kept notes I didn’t understand until after he was dead. I have spent three years writing the book I needed when I was fourteen.”
I stared at the notebook.
“And now I need it.”
“You do.”
“Even though you’re in love with Caspian.”
Cosima’s fingers pressed into the notebook and for a moment I thought she would take it back.
“Especially because I love him,” she said. “If I let them make him into another Korey, then I have learned nothing.”
I picked up the notebook.
The first page was dated eight years ago. The writing was younger and less controlled than the one she used now.
It began:
The Council has decided to send me to Zenith Hall. They have told me Korey died because his Calling failed. I am writing this because someday they will choose another girl and call it safety. If she finds this, I want her to know that safety is a lie.
Across from me, Cosima folded her hands in her lap.
Her eyes stayed dry.
Her mouth stayed unapologetic.
She looked like a girl who had made it through one version of this maze and was trying, dangerously, to hand me a map.
“Cosima?”
She looked at me.
“Thank you.”
Her expression sharpened.
“Read the rest before you thank me.”
20
Cosima’s notebook was under my coat when I left the east tower.
It was a stupid place to put a dangerous thing.
