Snow fell up.
Not down. Up, from the white plain toward a black sky where two moons hung, one black, one white, both full, both watching. It should have been cold, but the Council Hall that had opened sideways onto that plain was warm. White marble floor, hundreds of white chairs flickering with girls who weren't quite there, and two chairs at the front that were occupied.
Elara sat in the second chair. Recessive. For stored. The third bracelet around her throat that shouldn't exist burned white-hot, both wrists scarred crescent now, left from a life lived, right from a life left in a creek. The white feather was gone, absorbed into her chest where her own mark had been. Her palm bled where she'd cut it for Lyra, blood silver-threaded, dripping slow onto marble.
Kieran sat in the first
