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Denying herself a return home, denying the familiar comfort of her brothers, was like that shell.

An offering paid in sacrifice for the new life she wanted, far from Saltswan.

Her future belonged to Astera, the busy city streets, the slow-moving river, the courtyard elms. Days spent with Damson, filled with library books and gallery visits.

But by the end of the week, there was a reply from her brothers in Lark’s student mailbox. A telegram asking her to call them. Her family didn’t own a telephone, but they had written down the number for the village post office. They would be waiting, and Lark should call them the next morning.

She didn’t tell Damson about the note. She couldn’t. In the past, whenever Lark had spoken at length about her family, Damson would turn solemn and silent.

“I know you don’t mean to hurt me,” she finally explained, “but think how it feels, to hear about your brothers who love you so much, when all I have is my grandmother, who can barely remember to write once a year.”

If Lark showed her the telegram, it would be a disaster.

And Damson had been so kind to her since she came home, buying Lark little presents to cheer her up: a new velvet ribbon, a cherry-colored lip stain.

She had even shared photostats of all the first week’s notes from every class, neatly highlighted, because she knew Lark was upset over Alastair and would have trouble concentrating.

So the telegram sat like a burning ember in the depths of Lark’s satchel, hidden and secret, as she left the dorms early the next morning.

She slipped out through the side gate of Marchmain, even though it was against the rules to leave the campus so early without a permission note.

In the city, she found an anonymous public telephone booth at the corner of two quiet streets.

At the other end of the block, people were crossing the main thoroughfare on their way to work. The sound of voices and footsteps, and the engines of passing cars, formed a backdrop to the ringing that echoed up from the receiver after she dialed.

Lark gave her name to the person who answered the telephone. “My brothers are expecting me to call.”

Soon Henry came on the line. “Lark, what is all this about you not coming back? Is something wrong?”

“No,” she replied, forcing herself to sound calm, though her heart was racing. “I just think it would be easier for me to focus on my studies if I stay here.”

There was a sound of rustling, and Oberon spoke. “But we already made plans. Remember—we talked about it when we walked to the station. We were going to take the train to Driftsea and visit the new bookstore that has opened.”

Lark toyed with the end of her hair ribbon as she remembered her brothers’ eager suggestions for her next visit home.

In a guilt-stricken rush, she tried to explain, tripping over her hurried words.

“There’s a postgraduate curation program here, at the gallery, and I want to apply.

If I’m accepted, I’ll be able to study all of Caedmon’s works, perhaps even host my own exhibition. ”

Her brothers were silent. Then the line went muffled, as though one of them had put his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver.

Lark held her breath, trying to listen. She thought she could hear Henry and Oberon murmuring to each other, but it was impossible to be sure alongside all the noise of the city traffic.

“It’s very competitive,” Lark added. Her voice gave a little desperate quaver.

She clenched her teeth together, swallowed down her unsteadiness before she continued.

“They only take two students a year. And if I stay at Marchmain, I can do extra work in the term breaks and after my regular classes to help with my application.”

“I see,” Oberon said, his voice gone quiet. “That does sound perfect for you.”

“I will come back. After graduation, I’ll come home and see you both,” Lark told him. It was impulsive, this promise. A compromise she hadn’t been thinking about until this moment.

At the other end of the line, she heard a match being struck. Henry was lighting a cigarette. He breathed in, then exhaled with a slow sigh. “Graduation is still three years away. That’s a long time, Lark. If you change your mind, or get too homesick, or need us… we’ll be here, always.”

“I love you,” Lark said, and then covered the mouthpiece with her hand so her brothers wouldn’t know she had started to cry.

Her second year at Marchmain drew to a close. Spring emerged piece by piece across the winter-dark city, with leaves unfurling on the trees and budding flowers in the garden beds outside the gallery. In the refectory, they served fresh berries for dessert.

Lark and Damson spent every spare moment together.

They sat side by side in classes, avidly taking notes they would compare afterward.

They went early to gallery practicals and were always the last to leave.

Their rooms were both so full of books, at night Lark felt as though she was going to sleep inside a miniature library.

And as the weather turned warmer, the air tinted by birdsong, exams loomed like the clouds of a gathering storm.

From second year onward, academic results at Marchmain were posted on the board outside the commons building.

Everyone was tense and anxious, Lark included, knowing their grades would be visible to the whole school.

But the anticipation enlivened her, too.

She and Damson worked together whenever they could. After curfew, they separated into their own rooms. Lark would lose herself to photostats and index cards, staying awake well past the midnight bells as she underlined passages and memorized facts.

All the dorm rooms were furnished with a typewriter, and Lark wrote countless drafts of essays on the clattering, well-used keys.

When she walked through the halls, the noise of other students typing in their rooms was a constant soundtrack.

It became as soothing as the tap of rain against her bedroom window.

After they finished a draft, Lark and Damson would swap their essays.

If the hour was late, they would slip the pages under each other’s doors.

Damson would annotate Lark’s work in cheerful, bright blue ink.

It gave her such a sense of connection whenever she saw her friend’s responses in the margins.

On solitary midnights when her homesickness crept back in, she read Damson’s notes instead of her brothers’ letters.

When the assessment results for the year were posted, Lark placed second. Damson was first. Lark pressed her finger to the typewritten list, pinned on the announcement board, where her name sat right under Damson’s at the top of the column. It felt like proof that she’d made the right choice.

She pictured the rest of her time at Marchmain like a thing she could unfold, a carefully cutout paper garland.

Two Verse girls with their bookstacks and ink-marked essays, with their late nights in the gallery sitting on the bench in front of The Dusk of the Gods .

The letters from her brothers that she would tuck beneath her pillow.

At the end of it, she and Damson continuing on together as the gallery’s newest curation students.

And after graduation, she would go home. Surely then she would feel strong enough to step back into her old world and face whatever emotions rose. Surely then she would have forgotten all about Alastair Felimath and the way he discarded her, the way he had broken her heart.