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She could see his jaw working where he ground his teeth.

‘How did this happen?’ he asked instead, motioning to her injuries. ‘Can you tell me that at least?’

Thea’s side throbbed terribly and an icy shiver raked across her skin, but neither sensation was enough to distract her from him. ‘Training,’ she managed.

‘You’re not using steel yet. How?’

Wincing as she steadied herself, Thea gritted out: ‘There were punishments to oversee, apparently.’

Fire blazed in that icy stare; the only sign that he’d heard her. For a moment, he was unnaturally still before he spoke again.

‘Do you think you can stand?’ he said softly. ‘Thea?’ he prompted, when she didn’t respond straight away.

He’d used her name. Not ‘Alchemist’, not even Althea, butThea…

She found her voice hoarse when she spoke. ‘I think so.’

Slowly, he helped her to her feet, her whole body trembling with the effort. He draped his cloak around her bare shoulders, pulling it closed across her banded chest at the front.

He can probably feel my thundering heart, she thought, glancing down at where his knuckles brushed her skin, where they lingered.

And there, in the dim light of the cramped closet, for a moment she forgot about the pulsing pain at her side and her maimed abdomen, she forgot about Seb and Vernich and their cruelty entirely… Instead, she focused on the subtle hum of Hawthorne’s body. Her eyes caught his, and they simply stared at one another before his gaze dropped to her lips.

Am I delirious?she wondered, warmth flooding her.

‘You could have died in here,’ he said, something unrecognisable in his tone before strained lightness sounded. ‘Some legend you would have been then… The alchemist who keeled over in a broom closet.’

Thea’s heart raced, her fingers itching to hold her fate stone, to press it into his warm palm and tell him what it meant, what ittrulymeant. Enovius wouldn’t take her, not yet.

Instead, she shook her head and stepped away from the Warsword, opening the door. ‘No,’ she told him. ‘I couldn’t have.’

Torchlight from the corridor flooded the tiny closet and as soon as she was outside, she inhaled the cold air, instantly missing the closeness of his body, her skin still tingling.

Hawthorne still looked tense. ‘If you’re going to be a warrior of Thezmarr,’ he said. ‘You need to learn more than fighting.’

‘More wisdom for me today?’ She sounded weak.

‘You will need friends in this fortress, you will need a team. You need to learn to tend to wounds. You’ll have plenty of them. As will your friends. So if not for your own sake, learn for theirs.’

Thea thought of Wren and Ida and Sam, then Cal and Kipp as well. Sometimes she tried to convince herself she didn’t need them, that they were better off without her, a young woman with one foot already in her grave…

‘I haven’t noticed you with any friends.’ Thea hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but it was too late to take it back.

Hawthorne gave her a piercing look and ignored her comment. ‘Every discipline this fortress offers has a vital part to play. You should respect them all. You should master them all. There is more to this guild than blades and fists.’

‘So my sister tells me,’ Thea heard herself say.

‘And you should listen. She knows what she’s talking about.’

Hawthorne supported her all the way to Wren’s rooms, where the door flew open upon their approach.

Her sister’s eyes were wild with panic and she was instantly at Thea’s side, looping Thea’s arm over her shoulder, taking her weight from Hawthorne.

‘I’ll take it from here,’ Wren told him.

The Warsword hesitated in the doorway.

‘Thank you for helping my sister,’ she said rather tersely, before closing the door in his face.