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“You’re injured.” The statement carries as much emotion as if he were commenting on the weather.

Yanking my fingers from him and ignoring the pain, I retreat a step back. The wall affords me no more space to get away from him. I glower through my choppy bangs.

“I can help—” He’s reaching for the deck inside his coat.

“I’d rather peel my skin off with my nails than accept your help.”

Kaelis pauses, mid-motion. His gaze softens for a breath.

“You truly hate me.” The words are little more than a whisper.

“You sound…surprised?” All I can do is laugh. “You have orchestrated—or supported—everything that has ever led to hurt or pain in my life. You put me in Halazar.”

“It is not my fault that you were there.” His mouth contorts into a scowl. I assume he means it was my fault for breaking the law. Laws he’d helped make and uphold.

“You have some kind of machination”—I motion to the machine—“that could process powder for inks, and yet you still Mark and send people to the mills?”

“The machine is an artifact from the previous kingdom. Its secrets are lost and can’t be trusted.” He speaks with authority he shouldn’t have about “lost” sciences. It makes me trust him even less.

“And you’d prefer not to find them.” If it were me, I’d be ripping the thing apart at the seams to figure out how it works. Something like that could change the lives of Arcanists everywhere. “You’d rather kill Marked Arcanists as if it’s sport.”

He grabs my face, fingers around my jaw, pressing into my cheeks. The pain of the burns is as sharp as the fire that caused them. How quickly his facade of caring vanishes. I wonder how many women would be taken in by it.

“Don’t speak as if you know me,” Kaelis almost snarls.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I challenge, unflinching. The memory of the first applicant taking on the Chalice is as fresh in my mind as Kaelis walking away from his corpse.

“Do you think letting that applicant live as a Marked would’ve been any better? You know as well as I that most beg for a quick death from the moment they arrive at the mills.”

“Should I think you were being kind by murdering a man whose only crime was failing your test?”

“You should think of me as a man who would do whatever it takes to get what I want.” There is no room for doubt at the end of his statement.

“Like taking a woman who doesn’t want you as your bride so you can use her for who knows what—”

“You are going to help me get the World,” he says, repeating his earlier sentiment.

“A lot of effort to hunt down a fable.”

“The World is not a fable.” His words drop to a whisper, grip relaxing, as if he doesn’t dare say the name of the legendary Major too loudly. Kaelis’s fingers fall from my face, gliding over my skin and leaving cold in their wake. “It is real, of that I assure you.”

The World is real, Mother’s voice echoes from my childhood, and it can do anything .

Which is why it must never be found. Do not trust anyone who would seek it.

There were times I believed her warnings, and times I didn’t.

Times when I felt like she wanted me to remain unsure of what was true in her stories and what were lies.

But, much like her order to keep our Chevalyer name hidden, there were some things I knew better than to question her too deeply about.

“Of course it is,” I say with sarcasm, showing the uneasy feeling that the mere mention of the World fills me with. “And if you want any help from me to get it, you’re going to tell me what happened to Arina.”

“Didn’t I tell you? You’re not in any position to bargain.” Smugness wars with malice and the former wins. For now.

“Where is she?” I hadn’t planned on daring to bring her up again with Kaelis and risking him finally seeing something in me that would bring the familial resemblance to the fore.

But I hadn’t formulated any kind of plan when I followed him from the main hall.

I’m so tired. Everything hurts. All I want is to have something to channel all this pain and anger into, and Kaelis is an exceptional target for that.

“I don’t even know who she is.” Kaelis shrugs and steps away, as if he genuinely doesn’t know. I don’t believe it for a second. Not when he views all of the academy as his precious domain. It takes my mood from sour to outright venomous.

“ Arina. ” I repeat my sister’s name and take a step toward him. “The one who you forced me to confess was helping me steal supplies from the academy.” Who, I know now, ran. But I don’t say so.

“Ah, yes.” Such condescension in so few sounds. “ You were stealing from me, and you’re going to try to make it sound like I’m the one in the wrong?”

I don’t take his bait, staying focused on my sister.

Fortunately, it seems Kaelis didn’t know her well enough to see the familial similarities in the shape of our eyes or the color and texture of our hair.

“She should be a second year, and she’s not here.

” I wonder if he’s dodging the answer because it’d amount to admitting people can escape the academy.

“Perhaps the people you thought you could depend on are not as loyal as you imagined. You were in Halazar a long time; they might have thought you abandoned them and they moved on.” The way he says it…

it’s as though leaving them behind was my choice.

My heart hammers, and soon my ears are ringing from the rushing blood.

It’s taking all my might not to throw another fist at his face. Usually I’d prefer more elegant means of retaliation against someone threatening or insulting me and my loved ones. But, seeing as I’m not armed with cards at present…I’ll resort to what I must. My self-control is hanging by a thread.

“I. Don’t. Abandon. People.” I barely get the words out through gritted teeth.

A glint in his eyes makes me step back and relax, my walls quickly coming up. Exhaustion made me hasty. Clumsy. But it’s too late. He’s too clever not to realize the root of my anger—my hurt.

“But they abandon you. ” The words are searing hot needles pressing between my ribs and into the most delicate parts of my heart.

The deepest fear I never want anyone to see…

least of all him. Kaelis continues before I can think of any retort.

“Now, we must return to the main hall.” He offers his elbow.

“I’d rather eat glass.”

“It’s not glass you’ll have to eat, but whatever they serve you in Halazar.” His lips twitch into a smirk. I dip my chin and glower up at him. “Let’s drop the pretense; you don’t have a choice, Clara. Enough resisting.”

He pauses for emphasis. For the first time, I contain my anger and don’t rise to his goading. Approval shines in his eyes, as if I am a pet he’s taught a new trick.

“Now, take my elbow.” Every word is emphasized.

Reluctantly, I do.

“Good girl.”

I refrain from demanding more information about Arina as he escorts me out.

He’s not going to tell me, and pressing further would only show more weakness and give him more carrots to dangle in front of me that he’d never actually let me have.

I’ll have to find out what happened to her on my own.

Hopefully, she made it out and is giving Ravin and his enforcers headaches back in Eclipse City.

Kaelis pauses at the door and makes a show of locking it behind us.

There’s a flash of magic, but I don’t recognize the card.

The man already correctly assumed that I’d want to return to gather whatever information I could about the machine, regardless of his warnings.

He glances in my direction, looking for a reaction. I give him nothing.

We’re just about back to the main hall when the three Halazar guards enter the passage we’re on from a side door. I freeze in my tracks.

“Keep walking,” Kaelis commands under his breath.

I try, but my feet won’t move. My head is spinning. Kaelis’s biceps and forearm tense around my hand as if trying to anchor me, like he can sense my immediate need to bolt again.

“I have you.” It’s almost reassuring, even from him.

I’m just about to ask if we can take any other route when the guards turn in our direction. Savan’s eyes lock with mine once more. But this time I can’t run. Kaelis takes a step forward, and I have no choice but to follow him to my own demise.

“ You. ” That’s all the Halazar guard says before charging toward me.