1. The Mark It started under her left breast in October as something the size of a thumbnail, and it is not a thumbnail...
2. The Literature The library table has eleven books open on it and every one is open at the same page.
3. The Refusal She says she will manage, and then spends a night in the small room with the blankets and does not manage.
4. The First Night It gets worse at night. The books are vague about why and Corvina is not, and neither of them says the reas...
5. Skin Corvina sits on the edge of the bed and puts both arms around her from behind like she is holding a bird.
6. Morning After In the morning the mark is a hand's width smaller and Corvina is already dressed and already reading.
7. The Inspector Mione arrives in December with a suitcase and a Ministry instruction and no warning, because that is the po...
8. The Notes Corvina's notes are on the study desk in a hand so small it could be mistaken for a code, and Mione reads t...
9. The Argument The argument is in the kitchen and it is quiet, because the house is old and carries sound, and neither of ...
10. The Choice Mione takes her gloves off and puts them on the table, which in that house is a decision.
11. Faster They compare notes in the morning like two people comparing a route to the same town.
12. The Two of Them They meet in the hall on the fourth day, which neither of them arranged and both of them expected.
13. The Rule The rule is Corvina's and it is written on the last page of her own notes in the same small hand.
14. The Bath The copper bath in the old wing is the only warm room in the house and they have both started using it at t...
15. The Lifted Night On the nineteenth night the mark is gone entirely at four in the morning, and nobody in the house can say w...
16. The Asking Malfoid asks her to stay and does not give a reason, which is the first unreasonable thing she has done in ...
17. The Relapse It comes back on the twenty-second night, faster than it has ever come back, and this time it starts at the...
18. The Wrong Cure Skin. That is what the books say. But the only night it left her entirely, there were three of us in this h...
19. The Confession She makes them both sit on the end of the bed and she stands up to say it, because sitting down to say it w...
20. The Night Before They do not do it that night. They do it the night after, one at a time, as the rule says, and both of them...
21. The Ritual The stone room below the kitchen has a circle of candles on the floor and one pallet of blankets in the mid...
22. Ending — The Study Mione goes back to the Ministry in January and writes a report that says the illness was unregistered becau...
23. Ending — The Summer Mione resigns in February and does not tell the Ministry why, and the Ministry invents three reasons that a...
24. Ending — The Table She tells them the truth, which is that she is not choosing, and that if they will have her she will have b...