Chapter 187: You Breathe Too Loudly

Olive was asleep on Heather’s bed when Blair left.

She had come back from the washroom with her face scrubbed raw and pink and stood in the doorway of Room 204, waiting for the next order. Blair didn’t have one. Olive looked at the empty bed, then at Blair, and Blair nodded. Olive lay down and was asleep before Blair found her shoes.

Blair stood over her for a moment.

Then she went.

* * *

The East Wing was quiet in daylight. Exams were over, and nobody climbed to the fourth floor for fun.

The last door at the end of the corridor was shut. She knocked.

"Come."

Jack sat at his desk with a stack of papers and a red pen. The window behind him was open an inch, and the room smelled of cold air and espresso. He didn’t look up.

"Ms. Willows. I said eight o’clock."

"Ivy Marsh had a roommate."

The pen stopped.

He looked up then. His eyes went over her once: the long sweater, the cuff pulled down to her fingertips, the lip. They came back to her face.

"Close the door."

She closed it.

"Nora Finch. She came to my door this morning." Blair kept her eyes on the corner of his desk and gave it to him in order. "They told her Ivy transferred. Ivy didn’t pack. Her shoes are still under her bed. And her bed was made. Nora says she never made it once."

Jack leaned back in his chair and looked at her for a while. Then he stood and took his coat off the back of the chair.

"Sit. Don’t touch anything."

"Where are you going?"

"Records."

The door shut behind him.

Blair sat in the chair across from his. She lasted about a minute before she leaned over to read the paper on top of his stack.

It was someone’s History midterm. In the margin beside the second essay, Jack had written No. Four inches lower he had written it again. At the bottom of the page, in smaller letters, he had written Why. No question mark.

She sat back and folded her hands in her lap.

Her phone buzzed.

film is OVER

video room. yes or maybe

She typed Later.

later is just maybe in a coat

fine

i’ll be in the video room

not doing anything

just sitting here. alone. in the dark

the door’s locked btw

She pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t smile, then winced at the cut, and put the phone face down on her knee.

Jack came back twenty-two minutes later and laid a cream-colored card on the desk in front of her.

MARSH, IVY. Human. Dormitory G. Under Status, someone had typed TRANSFERRED. A date. Two signatures she couldn’t read. A round blue stamp from the council office, and a line at the bottom: Records forwarded to receiving institution.

"Which institution?" Blair asked.

"It doesn’t say. It doesn’t need to. Human transfers go through the council office, and the council office forwards them." He tapped the stamp. "Signed, stamped, filed on the right day. I’ve seen a thousand of these."

"So it’s wrong."

"It’s perfect." He said it like an insult. "Nothing on it is out of place."

She turned the card over. The back was blank.

She thought of a pair of shoes under a bed, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back for them.

"Then what do we have?"

Jack came around the desk and stood behind her chair. He put one hand flat on the desk beside her elbow, leaned down and slid the card out from under her fingers.

"From paper? Nothing."

His chest was against her back. She could feel him breathe.

He dropped the card on the stack of midterms. "The janitor."

Blair went still.

"She cleans this wing every night but Sunday." His voice was right beside her ear. "She finishes the fourth floor by eleven. Then she takes her cart out the service door and doesn’t bring it back until after two."

Blair turned her head. His face was very close.

"You found her."

"The day after you told me what she looked like."

"Where does she go?"

"Into the trees."

"You haven’t followed her?"

"I wanted to know if she’s consistent." He didn’t move back. Neither did she. "She is. Tomorrow night I’ll see where the cart goes."

"I’ll come."

"No."

"I know her face."

"So do I." His eyes dropped to her mouth and came back up. "You breathe too loudly. You’d only get in my way."

Her heart was going too fast. He could probably hear that too.

His mouth brushed the top of her ear, so lightly she might have imagined it. Her fingers curled on the desk.

"And if she sees you?" she whispered.

"She won’t."

He said it the way he said everything. As if it had already happened.

She looked down at the card on the stack. IVY MARSH, typed neat and straight.

"Thank you," she said. "For pulling it."

Jack straightened.

He took her right wrist, lifted it off the desk and looked at the sweater cuff sitting above her knuckles. It had ridden up while she read. The bruise showed purple at the edge of the wool. He pulled the cuff back down over her fingers and let her go.

"I didn’t pull it for you."

"For Ivy, then."

"I don’t care about the human, Ms. Willows." He went back around the desk and sat, and pulled the stack of midterms toward him. "Someone is moving people through this academy under the crown prince’s name, and I don’t know how and why. I’d like to."

He picked up his red pen and turned a page.

"Close the door on your way out."

She closed it.

For a moment she stood with her hand flat on the door. The corridor was empty. At the far end, past the medal case, the stairs went down and down.

Blair went with them, looking for the service door.