UNMARKED

Testing

Bex

Wren found me the next morning at the compost pits, quieter than usual, glancing over her shoulder twice before she finally spoke.

"I heard more," she said, low. "Near the council chambers again. I wasn't trying to, I was passing by, and the door was open further than it should have been."

My stomach tightened. "What did you hear?"

"Corwin, talking to two of the elders. Your name came up again, and Kade's, but this time there was another word too." She hesitated, and I watched her weigh something before deciding to say it.

"Testing. They used the word testing, more than once. I don't know what it means exactly, but the way they said it, it didn't sound like a formality."

"Testing for what?"

"I don't know." She looked genuinely unsettled, which did more to convince me than anything she'd said. "They went quiet the second someone walked past in the corridor. I didn't hear the rest."

I wanted to press her further, but something in her face had already closed, the particular shutter of someone who'd decided, privately, they'd said as much as they were willing to risk saying.

I thanked her instead, and watched her walk away toward the wash yard, and told myself, again, that the small flicker of doubt I felt watching her retreat meant nothing.

It would be a long time before I let myself examine that flicker honestly. By then, the cost of me not examining it sooner would already have been paid, by people who deserved better than my carefully chosen ignorance.