Page 49 of Zenith Tower

“I also told him to refuse if the Council offered to release me alone,” Caspian said.

I watched his face. “Your father won’t enjoy that.”

“He asked what would be useful. He can endure receiving an answer.”

I reached across the narrow space and took his hand. “Thank you.”

His fingers closed around mine. “There was something else.”

He drew a folded scrap from inside his sleeve and kept it hidden below his raised knee. The paper was coarse and dusted with flour along one edge.

“This was under the bread on my tray.”

Hale leaned closer without taking it from him.

Three words had been written across the paper in cramped black ink.

Aldric was removed.

For several seconds, all I could see was Aldric standing beside Juno at the formal, shoulders squared toward Quill as the stewards led us away.

“Do you recognize the writing?” I asked.

Hale shook his head.

“The flour could have come through Rev’s grandmother,” I said.

“Or someone wants us to think it did,” Caspian replied.

He turned the note so Kieran could read it.

“Removed from what?” Kieran asked.

“His position. The Hall. We have no way to know.” Caspian folded the scrap and slid it back beneath his knee.

Hale looked toward the stewards. “Quill may have included Aldric’s objections in the transfer report.”

“Then the Council knows he tried to stop it,” I said.

The steward nearest us shifted his weight. Hale waited until the man looked down the adjoining passage before speaking.

“Tell them about Delphine.”

I told Caspian and Kieran that she was stable and eating again. Then I told them what she had felt when I held her in Wing C: pain shifting after months in one place, the broken Mark pulling toward my hand.

“She wants me to find out what happened before I try again,” I said. “Hale offered to help.”

Caspian’s gaze moved to Hale. “Using your Mark.”

“As a point of comparison,” Hale said. “I can tell her what I feel from my side. I can’t teach her what her own Mark is doing.”

“Then we try once,” I said.

Caspian looked along the corridor. “Here?”

“We could ask Marrow to arrange it properly,” Hale said.

I looked toward the stewards. “With readers standing over us and instruments ready before we know what happens? No.”