Page 51 of Zenith Court

Sadie Corwin had come through the water gate secured against Caspian’s side eight hours earlier, thanking him for the smooth ride. Now she sat at the mill’s long table in the morning light, hands folded. She thanked Jonah for the lovely fire and hoped the weather would hold for the people fortunate enough to have windows. The unbarred window beside her was fogged with river damp. No floor attendant was there. She still spoke as if one were listening.

I would not touch the wall inside her until our limits were written. Sadie had not been allowed a choice in what was done to her; I wanted our agreement on paper where everyone could see it. Caspian drafted it at the tenter frame on paper Jonah had brought from the village with the flour. When I asked how long he needed, he said, “I finished it before we crossed the water. It only needed ink.”

I read it aloud. I could open the wall, but I could not alter Sadie’s own lines. Nothing of hers could be steered, brightened, quieted, or repaired. I was permitted to touch only what the Court had placed over her.

The agreement cited two signs that Sadie wanted the work attempted. First was the request she had carved before the wall closed over her: if anyone learns to open doors, open mine. Her initials and date remained beside it. A rubbing lay beneath a smoothing iron on the table, the grain of the oak visible between the letters. Second was Kieran’s note from the moment he had reached her through the wall: Anticipated the turn by half a beat. Present. Terrified. Still in there.

The last clause required me to stop if Sadie refused, pulled away, or asked for any part of the wall to remain. I read it twice. Then Caspian, Delphine, Jonah, Kieran, and I signed as witnesses or participants. Kieran wrote present until dark beside his name.

Sadie listened, smiling at the expected places. When I lowered the paper, she thanked me for reading and asked whether the document was wanted upstairs. “It’s yours,” Caspian said, placing it within her reach. “That’s kind,” she said. “They take such good care of us here.” We left the document beside her hand.

I moved a second chair to face Sadie’s by the window.

I reminded Sadie that I meant to touch only the wall and that she could pull away whenever she wished. Then I waited. When she offered me her hands, I released the smallest thread of current along my wrist—only enough to listen. The wall stood where it had below the waterline. Up close, its threads had been pressed together until they resembled felt. I could not isolate one without catching the strands beside it. For the first hour, I found nowhere safe to begin.

Then I found a less even section near the place she had made the carving. One strand crossed the wrong way and had been pressed back into the others. I followed it until it loosened beneath my thumb.

I eased it apart and waited. If I felt no response, I left it slack and moved on. If pressure met me from beneath, I made a little more room. One strand in the second hour would not move. I kept my thumb against it while the tea beside me went cold. Eventually, the pressure on the other side answered mine. By midmorning, my hands had cramped and we had opened no more than a finger’s width.

Around us, Jonah rotated through the roof, door, and road watches. Caspian recorded the hours and every change to the agreement. Delphine sat at my shoulder with two fingers below her collarbone, reading Sadie’s wall through the remnants of her own. Twice she said “lower,” once “left,” and each time she was right. Kieran talked quietly about the Hall kitchens and the tricks students played when the supervisors looked away. Sadie had learned the rhythm of his voice below the Court. Sometimes her attention shifted toward him.

An hour past noon, Kieran returned for the third time to a story about switching the bread baskets at Zenith Hall. On the first two tellings, Sadie had laughed when a prefect praised the kitchen loaf and then complained that servants had been given the better bread. This time she laughed before Kieran reached the complaint. Her hand stopped midway through folding her skirt. Kieran kept talking. Beneath my thumb, the strand I held pushed hard from the far side. I opened it and kept it from closing again.

After that, the openings came closer together. One of Sadie’s own lines resisted when I chose the wrong strand. I stopped at once, moved away from it, and nearly cried with relief. Her mouth had agreed with us all morning. Something inside her had just refused. From then on, I followed that pressure instead of measuring how much wall remained.

The changes were small. Sadie stopped thanking Kieran after every story. When Caspian replaced her tea, she pushed the new cup away because she had not finished the first. She scratched at the wool of her sleeve and did not apologize.

“What is that noise?” she asked in the middle of the afternoon.

The practiced warmth had dropped out of her voice. “The river,” Jonah said from the door. Sadie tipped her head and listened. “It’s loud.” After a while, she said, “I don’t like it.” She kept listening.

An hour later, she turned from the window and looked directly at me. “You’re not Edda.”

“No. I’m Astra.”

“Say mine.”

“Sadie.”

“All of it.”

“Sadie Corwin.”

“Again.”

I said it again. This time she watched my face.

“Is Edda alive?” she asked.

Caspian told her the Hall kitchens had survived the spring, and that Edda and Cobb were both alive.

“Cobb mends better than he thinks he does,” she said. The familiar sentence came slowly. She frowned, then looked toward the fogged glass.

“Open the window.”

Jonah put his hand on the latch. “It’s cold.”

“I know.”