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The rain continued all night. And I heard it all night.

Because I didn’t sleep.

In the early, pre-dawn hours, the rain turned to hail. Icy pellets crashed into theLavariyalike nature was doing its utmost to bury us. My bed was hard and cold and, bizarrely, felt entirely foreign to me now. The place I’d slept for twenty-two years, first sharing with my aunty, and then on my own…

It didn’t feel like mine.

Lala could sense my agitation. She tried various methods of engaging me, distracting me, but none of them worked.

Exhausted, eyes burning, I gave up on remaining in theLavariya.Oaken would likely be waking up about now.

It was time to tell him. Tell him about the call with Tasha.

Let him know that as soon as this storm cleared out, the warden would come.

And I would leave.

I shoved my feet into my boots, tugged on a jacket, then opened theLavariya’sdoor.

“That is not advisable!” Lala said, her smooth robot-voice coming as close to panic as she was capable of. “The ship’s sensors indicate that the severe weather has not yet passed.”

I didn’t need sensors to tell me that. The wind flooded into the ship. Outside, ice balls bigger than Lala slammed down to the ground.

“Remain inside!” Lala chirped frantically. “Ice that large could cause significant damage to any number of places on your body that-”

“I’m just running to Oaken’s door!” I said, raising my voice as the wind screamed. It was barely ten metres away. “You stay here!”

Before I could hear if she replied, I dashed out into the storm. I held both my arms over my head, but by some miracle I didn’t get hit by a hailstone. I crashed against Oaken’s door, adrenaline pumping, heart pounding, and found it was unlocked. I rushed inside.

The kitchen was empty, but a second later Oaken was there, stepping out of his bedroom. The storm made everything darker than it should have been at this time of day. But the room suddenly glowed with the force of his eyes.

“Jaya,” he murmured.

“Oaken…” I wanted to run to him. I wanted to run from him. I wanted to hide on my ship until she took me away from here.

I wanted to stay.

“I have to talk to you,” I said, my heart in my throat. “About something serious.”

Oaken went rigid. His jaw tensed.

“My conviction,” he said.

“Wait…”

“I knew you would want to know soon. Were you thinking about this last night? Is this why you did not want me near you?”

“No! That’s… That’s not it at all…”

“I will tell you. If you want to know.”

This conversation was not going the direction I’d planned. But I couldn’t deny that a part of me – and not a small part – did want to know what had happened when he was a kid. Magnolia had dropped a few hints over lunch that first day together that made me think she knew the story. But she hadn’t mentioned any details.

I supposed because it wasn’t her story to tell.

But even more than my curiosity was a visceral need to protect Oaken. I never wanted him to do anything he didn’t want to.

Not with me. Not ever.