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I take another step closer and, hesitantly, slip my fingers into his gentle hold.

His murmur soothes me, “Where else would I have you but with me, my sister?”

My heart plummets and hits my gut, hard.

How can I stay with him here in Kithe?

It’s a dream, a fantasy, a lie he feeds me to soften the blow of our looming separation.

If I survive this Sacrament, then father will take me home; and I might still be sold to Taroh or another. Maybe the Grott will become my new prison for a while. Daxeel has made it clear that he and I will never be. And so I turn my back on those hopes I grappled onto not so long ago.

My future is not in Kithe.

And I realize now, it is not with Eamon.

So there is only sadness on my face when a flash of blue flares from the bedside table; the flame in the lantern.

I scramble out of reach.

Without a word farewell, I’m out the door, headed for the roof, swallowing back thick tears all the way.

For the first while of this lesson, I have thoughts of Eamon in Kithe while I return to the light lands. Those thoughts morphinto daydreams of us both living here together, running our own little tavern.

I let my mind get away from me.

And it distracts me.

I miss the target for the fourth time this round, the knife thudding to the mat, when Dare scoffs at my side.

He leans his head back as though praying to the gods for patience, eyes shut on his frustration.

“Enough of this,” he says with a sigh. “Come with me.”

He turns his back on me and stalks to the edge of the roof.

He stops at the black fence and grips a pale hand around the metal arrowhead. He yanks, hard, and the fence shudders to the side, creating a gap in the railing.

Setting down the knives, reluctance slows me down as I approach. My narrowed gaze runs him over with each step closer.

Dare just watches me in silence, a mask of tedium pulled over the angles of his face.

He jerks his chin to the side, a gesture over the edge. “Look.”

I take another step, close enough to the railing that I can peer over the side.

“See the lattice?”

I nod.

“Daxeel says you climbed lattices at home.”

Constantly.

Every time I wanted to sneak out, I had to climb the lattice at my bedroom window. And that was a weekly occurrence ever since I turned sixteen.

“So,” he says as though it’s obvious. “Climb.”

I don’t get a moment to so much as blink before the ground is pulled out from under me, and I’m falling.