Reborn Luna Hears Every Lie novel · Chapter 6 of 40

Chapter 6: The Witness Who Came to Collect

Elder Cass did not knock. She opened the door with the flat of her hand and walked in like the room belonged to the pack, and she was holding the letter.

Sera was sitting on the edge of Dov's cot with her journal closed under her palm. She had heard the boots on the stairs two floors down. She had heard the breathing change at the landing. She had known, before the handle turned, exactly who was coming and roughly why.

Cass stopped in the middle of the floor and held the page out to Dov, who was standing at the small table with a mug of tea gone cold.

'You are her witness,' Cass said. 'Hold it. She should see it in someone else's hands before she decides what she is.'

Dov took the page. She did not look at it yet. She looked at Sera, and Sera tilted her head a half-second, listening to the thought underneath the words, and heard it clearly: Cass had rehearsed this in the car.

'Kneel,' Cass said.

Sera did not move.

'I supervised your training for three years,' Cass said. 'I wrote the recommendation that let you stand in the bonding ceremony at all. When a candidate abandons her candidacy, she kneels before the elder who vouched for her and she asks for the letter to be restored. That is the form. You know the form.'

'I know the form,' Sera said.

'Then do it.'

'No.'

Cass blinked once. It was the smallest thing, a flicker at the corner of her eye, and Sera watched the amber shimmer around her head go bright and then dim, the way a lamp does when a hand passes over it.

'You understand what you are refusing,' Cass said.

'I understand it exactly,' Sera said. 'You came here to watch me beg. You brought the letter so I would have something to beg for. You brought a witness so it would be remembered.'

Cass's mouth tightened. 'You sound like you are giving a press conference.'

'Then what would you like to hear?' Sera said. 'Should I cry so you can comfort me? Should I argue so you can correct me? Tell me the version you prepared for, and I will consider whether it is worth the performance.'

Dov set her mug down on the table with a small hard click. She still had not looked at the page.

The silence went on a beat too long, and Sera let it. She had learned in the grove that silence was a place you could put a person, and that most people would climb out of it by talking.

Cass climbed out.

'You were the best candidate I ever trained,' she said. 'That is not flattery. It is the reason this is difficult.'

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