She Was Supposed to Stay Broken, So I Let Her Think She Had novel · Chapter 16 of 40

Chapter 16: The Mark That Outlasts the Index

'I filed that crease myself.'

Cass's thought reaches me before she speaks. An amber shimmer gathers around her head, and her unspoken words slip beneath the voice she gives the room. I isolate the sentence. The stove stops ticking. The rustle near the shelves cuts off. Cass's thought hangs in full color while I decide whether to keep it or act on it.

I keep it. The room returns.

Dov sets the sigil rubbing between Cass and Kael. Charcoal dust clings to one edge. The paper is soft from being handled and folded more than once.

'Identify the mark and its position,' Dov says. 'Without help.'

Cass looks down. I do not tell her what I need the mark to mean. Kael watches her study the crease and the dark shape beside it. He has trusted the record Aldren gave him. I need him to face what that record left out.

'Where did you find this?' Cass asks.

'It was kept outside the register,' Dov says. 'The mark is copied from an old filing.'

The room smells of dried rosemary and bitter roots warming near the stove. Dov keeps both hands beside the rubbing, ready to stop anyone from moving it. Cass glances toward me. I give her no answer to borrow.

She bends closer. One finger follows the pale fold without touching the charcoal. 'This is not a random crease. It falls at the same place on the sheet I filed.'

Amber brightens around her head. A second voice slips beneath hers: I marked it because the entry needed to remain traceable.

I hold on to the thought. It belongs to Cass. The spoken record belongs to the room. Knowing why someone acted is different from proving what they did. I can use the first to keep my face still. The second has to come from Cass herself.

'You filed a page with this mark?' Kael asks.

'Yes.' Cass straightens. 'The original birth-cord entry was certified and countersigned. I filed it under the proper record.'

The herbs turn bitter as the stove heats them. I watch Kael take in her answer. Aldren's index is absent from the table. His account of an irregular entry no longer stands alone.

'The index does not show it,' Kael says.

'An index can fail to carry a cross-reference,' Cass replies. 'That does not erase the authority of the filing itself.'

Dov shifts from my shoulder to the table. Until now, she has stood close as a guard against anyone reaching for the rubbing. She takes her place beside Cass and sets her hand near the paper, lending it the same protection she gave me.

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