He told me the first bike he ever rode had a bent wheel, and how he had learned to compensate, and I did not tell him about feathered balance and the mathematics of air. I told him the smell of bergamot could make me cry if I wasn’t careful, and he did not ask why. He told me he once watched a man lie on the stand so well the jury thanked him for it, and that he spent a week afterward feeling hollow and rich.
I did not absolve him. I didn’t know how, and it wasn’t my job. I learned where his voice went quiet and what made it brighten. I discovered his breath when he smiled, the subtle drag of it when he was afraid. He learned my deflections and didn’t pry them open with a knife.
Time pressed its cheek against the glass, fogging it. I forgot to be precise. I remembered to be kind. The chamber’s red hum slipped under my skin and stayed.
At some point, I stopped pretending my notes were for Lucy and started writing for me. One-word lines, quick arrows. Honest. Funny. Tired. Braver than he thinks. The kind of handwriting you hope no one else ever sees, but also wish someone would read and say yes, me too.
“Tell me something you don’t usually say out loud,” he murmured, lulled into boldness. “Doesn’t have to be big.”
“I hate pears,” I said promptly, because I am a coward with excellent reflexes.
He smiled into the dark. “Progress.”
“Now you.”
He was silent long enough, I thought he’d fallen asleep, or quit me for the first time in his life. Then: “Sometimes I wish someone would tell me what to do.” It was barely sound. “Justonce. Not because I can’t figure it out, but because it would mean I’m not alone in deciding.”
I pressed my tongue to my teeth and thought. “Breathe in for four,” I said instead, because it was safe and practical. “Hold for four. Out for six.”
He obeyed. It felt like stepping onto a bridge and finding it holds.
When the rune finally chimed, soft and green as a mercy, I flinched like I’d been struck.SESSION COMPLETEbloomed on my console in polite letters. I stared at it, unreasonably betrayed.
The chamber sighed. The seam of the door whispered open. The air moved. He turned toward the sound the way flowers tilt toward the sun. I stood without remembering rising and met him at the threshold because professionalism had gone to bed far before our forty-eight hours were over. The blindfold was gone; the lights were gentle. He blinked, eyes adjusting, and found me.
“You stayed the whole time,” he said, voice raspy.
“You didn’t break,” I answered. “I’m so proud of you, Max.”
His mouth tilted. “I wouldn’t have made it without you.”
“Nonsense,” I replied automatically, but I couldn’t help but respond to the impish smile that had crossed his handsome face.
“Good job, recruit,” Agnus barked, coming to pick up Max from the chamber. “You’ve passed. You can go get some rest in the barracks before tomorrow’s final competition.”
“Thanks, Ivy,” his voice tailed off as he followed Agnus down the passageway. But I couldn’t help the internal kick to the ribs when he turned at the last moment and winked at me.
Damn it all to hell—I might have just gone and fallen in love with a HuBull contestant.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAX
Sleep didn’t come easily that night, despite being awake for 48 hours. When it did, it brought her with it.
Ivy’s voice tangled through my dreams—low, steady, and full of quiet storms. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes whispered. Sometimes it was just breathing, and that was enough to make the world tilt.
Every word we’d shared during the trial replayed in pieces: her teasing, her warmth, the way she’d saidwindlike it meant freedom itself. I’d told her about loneliness, and she hadn’t filled the silence with pity. She’d just been there. Present. Listening.
Somewhere in that mess of half-sleep, she had her wings back. I don’t know how I knew what they’d looked like—they shimmered at the edges of my mind, pale and bright. Maybe it was imagination, or perhaps I’d seen her truer than she meant me to. All I knew was that she was braver than she thought, smarter than she let on, and far too sweet for a place like this. She’d seen the real me, the one stripped of titles, body, and bravado—and somehow, she’d cared.
When I finally woke, I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream or a revelation.
The barracks buzzed with the restless noise of men who’d survived another trial. Kevin was sprawled on the bunk opposite mine, tossing a small metal coin in the air and catching it like he had nothing better to do.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said without looking up.
“Maybe I have,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand through my hair.
