Page 130 of Zenith Tower

“Infirmary.”

The steward turned me toward my room.

“Who is it?”

“Keep walking.”

A second steward came around the curve at a run. The only blood on the front of his gray coat was a dark print where someone had caught at him with one hand.

My stomach dropped.

“Delphine?” I asked.

Neither man answered. They did not need to.

I pulled against the grip on my arm. “Take me to her.”

“Return to your room.”

“You know what I can do.”

“That is precisely why you are returning to your room.”

The words struck harder than his hand. I planted my feet, but the smooth floor gave me nothing to brace against. He dragged me two steps before another voice stopped us.

“Bring her.”

The administrator stood at the head of the lower stair, one hand resting against the wall as though she had climbed too quickly and refused to show it. Her dark dress was unfastened at one cuff. In the other hand, she held a certified copy of the annex, its blue exhibit seal visible beneath her fingers.

The steward loosened his grip without releasing me. “The restriction??—”

“Has not changed. Bring her anyway.”

We descended into air that smelled of mineral water, hot metal, and the bitter green tincture the healers used for pain. The infirmary doors stood open. Inside, two readers were forcing Delphine’s left arm flat against the bed while the healer bent over her hand.

She was not screaming. That frightened me more.

Her body had gone rigid beneath the blankets, her jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles fluttered in her cheek. The Mark on the back of her hand had spread beyond the shape I remembered. Its pale, damaged lines had turned nearly black at the center, with thin branches running toward her wrist. Blood welled from cracks in the skin above them.

The air held the charged metallic smell that came before a storm.

Delphine saw me. Her eyes found mine through the bodies around the bed and held.

“No,” Marrow said.

He stood so still beside the foot of the bed that I had looked past him. His coat was buttoned despite the heat.

The administrator handed him the annex.

“Read the third page.”

“This is not the time.”

“A young woman is bleeding through a Mark your records declared resolved. I cannot imagine a better one.”

The healer looked up. Sweat shone along her hairline. “The afternoon reader required her to surface the entire Mark for comparison. The first fracture opened before the reading ended. It has reached the wrist now. If it crosses the joint??—”

“Then treat it,” Marrow said.