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Realization sunk in. My life cost seven students’ lives. Rage filled my blood. Tears fell from my eyes with every blink.

“How could you?” I hissed so loudly that I didn’t care if others heard.

“How could I save you? You’re welcome.” I heard his words, but he didn’t speak them out loud. My mind whirled as he repeated, “Your breaths are owed to me. I won’t have your death on my hands.”

Where was Myla? Damien was beside Malachi, who was coughing up seawater. Everett leaned against Knox, the life coming back into his flushed cheeks.

My heart began to pound. Crying out Myla’s name, I staggered through the students. “What kind of trial is this? This is…” the words wouldn’t form. I couldn’t breathe until I saw Myla.

I held the frosted dagger to my chest, yelling back at Archer, “You should have let me die. Now Myla’s key is probably in your pile. Why was my life worth more than theirs?” I stared at each key one by one as if I heard their names echo silently.

Archer gazed blankly at me before walking away. He doesn’t care. His reputation means everything, and it is worth more than seven lives. I clutched my gut, leaned over, and threw up more seawater.

Bridger grunted from the shore. “…I found the fifth body. Her name is Myla,” he said to a Valscribe journalist. “Cause of death: drowning.” The journalist jotted in a notebook, continuing on as more students emerged from the water.

He carried a dark-skinned girl in his arms. She was lifeless. Her lips were blue-hued, parted as water dripped from her lungs. A severed chain dangled from her ankle, the lock untouched. Her chest hadn’t moved in those daring leaps I made toward her, pressing my hands against her ashen cheeks.

Myla. Not Myla .

Bridger shoved me off. “She’s dead,” he said causally. “Myla Reinhart is dead.”

My knees buckled. “No… save her. She can’t die!”

“Severyn, go back to your corridors. The trial has ended.” He closed his eyes. “People die here. Get over it.”

I crashed to the ground. Grief was raw, a blistered welt on my heart that never seemed to heal. And Klaus’s wound had reopened. Myla. Not Myla.

Damien ran to my side. Only his ankles were wet. “Severyn, are you okay?”

Bridger shouted again, “Lynch, get Blanche out of here. She’s a fucking mess.”

A gasp sounded from behind me. Myla opened her eyes, sucking a deep breath in. And my entire body flared toward her. She met Bridger’s eyes—seawater spilling from her mouth. He placed her on the dock gently as she caught her breath.

“Give me a minute.” She rolled on her knees, hand flat against her chest as she coughed.

Bridger knelt beside her, patting her back. “We need to get this chain off you.” His voice was sullen, still processing the lifeless girl whom he carried to shore was breathing.

Grief consumed the docks. And I couldn’t dare meet any of their eyes. I caused those cries, the wails, the shock… seven lives. I was worth seven lives.

I took off back to the estate. My slacks weighed me down, chafing my thighs. Malachi was safe, and Myla was alive. It was the only thought that got me through the halls.

I huddled under my blankets for the next hour before a soft knock sounded at my door, and Damien clutched two cups of tea as he stepped inside. “Figured this would settle that saltwater in your stomach,” he said.

I thanked him, knowing he wasn’t allowed in my dorm once dawn painted the sky. We sat in silence on my bed for a moment. “Archer had seven keys,” I said. “Why would he save me?”

He shrugged. “Archer does what he wants without consequence. He placed you under his mentorship, and I doubt he’s willing to let you die without proving whatever he told the headmaster at the Rite.

” Damien slid his hand inside his pocket and pulled out a necklace with a glass cylinder-shaped pendant looped around.

“Listen, if you ever need me, simply hold it, and I’ll be there before your first tear drips. ”

I inspected the necklace, tracing a thumb over the clear, roughly cut pendant. “Did you make this with your quell?”

Damien blushed, lowering his gaze. “Yes, after today—I realized how terrible I would feel if you were in trouble and I couldn’t help you. It’s just glass, Sev. Not a diamond or anything of value.”

“I love it. That’s very sweet of you. Thank you.” I twisted my torso. “Could you put it on me?” I tried to keep it together but couldn’t stop my shuddered breaths.

Damien carefully lifted my hair and placed it over my shoulder.

His arms surrounded me as the glass pendant touched my chest, and his fingers clasped the chain, slightly stroking his thumb down my spine.

I didn’t want him to leave. Not tonight…

not when I could still hear the shattered screams as six students lost someone.

Damien sensed my misery. His fingers glided toward my jaw, angling me to face him, and those hazel eyes consumed me with flecks of orange and green as if a forest existed within his iris. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“Nearly dying takes a lot from you,” I whispered as his touch slipped from my face.

“Find your light and hold onto that. Some days are worse, but it only means tomorrow will be brighter.”

As Damien turned to leave, I asked, “Do you know who had my key?”

The silence whispered back, and I knew his next words when he clenched his jaw and faced me one last time.

“I did. Malachi went into the water to save you and nearly drowned herself in the process. But Archer… he’d taken the key from her.

Archer killed six people today to save you.

Three were Night students. The rest were Winters.

I won’t tell you their names unless you wish to know. ”

Disgust rolled in my guts. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything, but you are here to live another day.

This is normal, Severyn. People die trying to prove themselves.

This trial wasn’t about you today. It’s another way the academy gets rid of the underperformers.

I might be an asshole for saying this, but I’m glad he saved you when I couldn’t. ”

I didn’t have it in me to be upset at his bold assumption that my life was greater than seven. “I was collateral damage,” I said. “I was my brother’s test.”

“Rest and be thankful you have a tomorrow.” Damien stepped out, closing the door behind him.

As I tried to rest my eyes, a familiar voice whispered through the shadows, as if that leaking starlight had punctured holes in the windows.

“Find him,” she called. “Only you can awaken him.”