I prefer watching the flames die as the night stretches on.

“No,” I say. “Thank you.”

A hint of stubbornness flickers in her eyes. “Do you think me incapable of waking you?”

“Hardly. I think I am incapable of sleep.”

“Ah.” She glances away, into the darkest shadows, where Jacob, Noah, and Tycho lie in the softer leaves beneath a pine tree. Iisak is somewhere overhead in the branches, or possibly out hunting.

Tycho’s lash marks have scabbed over heavily, with mottled bruising to fill in the spaces between. He still moves stiffly throughout the day and looks grateful every time we make camp.

“He is healing,” says Lia Mara.

“I should be able to help him.” I flex my fingers and shake my head. “This magic seems useless if it only works when my life is at risk.”

“Surely you did not pick up a sword and expect to be proficient on the first day.”

“No, but—but that is different.”

“Why?” She uncurls from where she sits, then claims a short dagger from our stash. When she returns, she sits beside me. “Here. Practice.”

“Practice?”

She takes my hand, her fingers small and cool against mine. She turns my wrist over, then lifts the dagger.

My free hand snaps out to catch her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“You let Iisak tear your arm open when you practice, but you fear a little dagger?”

“I do not fear the dagger.”

Her eyebrows go up. “You fear me?”

No. Yes. Not so much her, but who and what she represents.

When we started this journey, I was so sure she’d be demanding and domineering, much like Karis Luran. I expected her to force an oath from my lips in exchange for safety, or for her to display some trickery or guile. I keep thinking about the first night, when I thought Iisak might kill me. The way she got down on her knees in the underbrush to hold my hand and whisper my name.

I’m not sure anymore.

I release her hand. “I’ve seen what you can do with an arrow.”

She smiles ruefully. I brace myself for the bite of the blade, but she is quick. Blood wells before I feel the pain. Those stars wait, tiny flickers of light under my skin. They scatter when I pay attention to them, like trying to gather bits of dust in a sunbeam. A drop of blood trails down my arm to vanish into the dirt below, and I give an aggravated sigh.

“Not everything can be accomplished by force,” Lia Mara says.

“Clearly.”

“I know you can be gentle. I saw you with Princess Harper.”

A new note enters her voice, one I do not fully understand, a mixture of uncertainty and longing and disappointment. I look up, seeking her eyes, but she keeps her gaze on the stripe of blood on my skin.

“There was nothing between me and the princess,” I say.

“There was something between you and the princess.”

“Never. Truly.”

“I have a dagger, Grey.” She finally looks up. Her words are taunting, but there’s an element of truth in her eyes. “Do not lie to me.”

“I could disarm you.”

“You could be honest with me.”

“The princess …” My voice trails off in a sigh. But of course there are no secrets. Lia Mara knows of the enchantress. She knows Disi was a sham.

“To understand my relationship with Harper,” I say, “you must understand what happened to Prince Rhen. He was cursed by the enchantress Lilith. He had one autumn season to find a girl and earn her love, or he would become a monstrous beast that would terrorize Emberfall.”

Lia Mara’s eyes are wide. “The monstrous beast that drove out our forces?”

“One and the same.” I pause. “At the end of the season, if he failed, he would become human again and the season would restart. Only … the dead remained dead.”

She studies me. “The royal family was supposedly killed in Disi.”

I look back at her and wait for her to figure it out. Speaking these words still feels too much like treason.

“He did it himself,” she finally says. Her voice is hardly more than a whisper. “When he was a monster.”

“Yes.”

She shudders. “For the first time, he truly has my sympathy.” Her eyes fix on mine. “What about you?”

“I was trapped similarly. I was charged with finding girls to break the curse.”

Lia Mara frowns. “How long did it take for you to ‘find’ Harper?”

“Time in the castle did not pass at the same rate as time in Emberfall. I have no real way of knowing. A few years passed here, but within the walls of Ironrose …” Now it’s my turn to shudder. “It was interminable. Harper was our final chance—and she was not even the girl I chose.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She saw me attempting to take another young woman and attacked me with an iron bar.”

Lia Mara snorts with sudden laughter. “I knew I liked her.”

“She wanted nothing more than to go home. She fought for it so fiercely. But when she could not, she turned her attention to Emberfall. She renewed Rhen’s faith that he could save his people.” I pause. “She became a princess by her words and actions, if not by blood.”

“Ah,” says Lia Mara, her skepticism clear. “So it is merely admiration between you.”

“We endured much together, but fate did not put me in her path for anything more than friendship.”

“Is that because you felt nothing for her, or because you were sworn to obey the prince?”

Lia Mara is too clever by far. “Does it matter?”

She meets my eyes boldly. “Yes.”

“Because I was sworn to obey the prince, I could not have feelings for another,” I say. “If you are seeking sordid secrets, you will find none.”

“I saw the way she looked at you, behind the inn.” She pauses. “She allowed you to escape, even knowing it would put Emberfall at risk.”

“She allowed me to escape because she knows I will not put the kingdom at risk.”

“She would have come with you, if you’d asked.”

“Jacob asked, and she refused.”

“Jacob is not you.”

I flinch and look away. “Regardless. I would not have asked.”

I expect her expression to turn cynical, but maybe she hears the truth in my words, because she frowns, her eyes sad. “You were very loyal.”

Yes. I was. I look away, into the fire.

She squeezes my hand. “When a man no longer deserves your loyalty, it is not a failing of yours, Grey.”

I do not know what to say. Does Rhen deserve my loyalty?

Her fingers brush against my wrist, feather light. “Perhaps you needed a distraction.”

I look down. Beneath the blood, the wound has closed.

“Do it again,” I say, and my voice is a bit rough.

The dagger lifts, and she brings it down swiftly.

This time, the blade slices through the back of her hand. She gasps.

I do too. “What are you—”

“Shh.” She grips my hand and slaps it over her wound. “Heal it.”

I try to force the stars to jump from under my skin and into her wound, but of course they scatter and dance, impossible for me to catch.