Page 141 of Zenith Tower

The bond carried no words, but I knew the shape now.

“They felt what happened in the infirmary,” I said.

“The readers measured a simultaneous response.” The administrator looked at my wet shoes, then at the hand I had closed over my wrist. “I have authorized an evidentiary consultation before my authority expires. All named subjects and witnesses may prepare for the hearing together.”

“How generous of the evidence to let us speak.”

“It was the only designation Marrow could not overturn without delaying the transfer order.”

She led me west instead of toward the review rooms. A steward waited outside a narrow chamber with his back to a door sealed in blue wax. The administrator’s signet had been pressed repeatedly along the jamb. The seal would show if anyone entered. It would not stop the stone from carrying sound.

“You have until the warning bell,” she said. “The steward will remain outside. Assume the walls are not private, and do not speak any name or route you cannot afford to lose.”

“Will you be listening?”

“No. That does not mean you’re safe from anyone else.”

She broke the wax and opened the door.

Once I crossed the threshold, she shut us in and sealed the jamb again from the corridor.

The room held a scarred table with chairs crowded close around it, and a high slit through which the water-light entered in restless bands. Caspian rose when he saw me. His coat was still fastened wrong from the review. Hale stood near the wall, burns visible above one cuff. Kieran had been given his record folio back, though a black ribbon had been tied around it to show that he was forbidden to open it.Delphine sat beside him with her healed hand uncovered on the table.

For a moment I could only look at her.

The skin around her Mark remained swollen from my touch. The lines were clean but not restored to what they had once been; too much had been cut away for that. I had joined them where they had been forced apart. Her fingers lay flat instead of curling inward against the old pain.

“Still mine,” she said. “You look as though you need reminding.”

I sat beside her. Caspian took my numb hand under the table and turned it palm-up, his thumb moving over the center as if warmth might persuade the nerves to wake. The bond eased at his touch. Kieran and Hale let the other two lines settle around it, present without pressing.

Kieran watched me sit. “Did the signal reach you?”

“Enough to stop me. I couldn’t tell why.”

Some of the strain left his face, though his hand remained over the line.

Hale drew out the chair across from me. “That’s all the signal can do. It can interrupt you. It can’t tell you why.”

“And if one of you is the reason I need to stop?”

“The others hold it steady,” Caspian said. “We tried separately before they brought me in. You barely noticed. Together, you answered.”

I flexed my fingers. A faint sting moved through them and vanished.

“Walkin will have the measurements.”

“They’ll know the bonds responded at the same time,” Hale said. “Not what we were doing.”

“Unless this room tells them.” Delphine glanced at the water channel running beneath the wall.

No one said more about it. Caspian kept hold of my hand, but his attention moved to the sealed door.

“The administrator gave us until the warning bell,” he said. “That leaves two choices.”

“Leave before first bell,” Kieran said. “Or let them put me in the east room and hope procedure remains fashionable after Walkin arrives.”

“You will not be alone in that room,” I said.