There it is. The last refuge.
Ignorance.
As if ignorance were a weather event and not a set of choices made repeatedly over years.
“How were we supposed to know?” he asks, and for one split second I hear something almost childlike in it. Not innocence. Panic stripped of polish.
I stand.
The witness box rail is lower than it looked from seated height. I step down carefully, smoothing the skirt of my suit without really thinking about it. The phoenix pin catches light once. Marcus watches me but does not move to intercept. He knows I do not need rescuing from this room anymore.
“You weren’t supposed to know the details,” I say. “But you were supposed to know me.”
My voice carries cleanly because the room has made itself small enough to hold it.