He saw something he shouldn't have, I shared it with someone I shouldn't have.
I should’ve known better.
But when you’ve trusted someone your whole life—since you were kids, since training, since you bled side byside on the sparring mats—you don’t question them when they offer help. You don’t think they’ll hand you over for a promotion.
I told Morgan everything. She was my person. I thought friendship meant protection. Turns out, it was just a blueprint.
She knew exactly how to hurt me—because I showed her where to aim.
They came for him on a quiet afternoon.
I was eight months pregnant, coming home from the market, I turned the corner and saw them dragging your father out into the street like he was nothing. Kicking him. Spitting on him. Calling him a filthy Outerlander. I couldn't breathe. I couldn’t move.
But he saw me.
Even through the blood, even through the shouting, he found me. And in that second, we both knew.
That was it. It was over.
There was no escape left, no more games to play. Our time pretending we were just another quiet Innerland couple had run out.
So when the officer turned to me and asked if I knew him... I lied.
I said I lived on the other side of town. I said I’d never seen him before in my life.
But I knew they would come back, ask more questions, figure out I'd been hiding him all this time. So I ran. To his home, to the Outerlands, to the place I swore I’d never go. I ran carrying you and a grief so sharp it still hasn’t dulled.
You’ve asked me why I don’t talk about him. Why I don’t tell you stories.
It’s not because I don’t have them, Lyra. And it’s not because they’re too painful to share, though they are. It’s because when you grow up, I don’t want you digging. Asking. Looking. Because if you find the truth—if you go chasing the pieces I buried—it won’t lead to safety. It’ll lead to the people who took Peter.
And I can’t lose you too.
You’re all I have.
I’m all you have.
Remember Lyra. Every betrayal begins with a hand held in trust, and the closer they stand, the easier it is to fall.
I’m running late today,barely slept last night, and then overslept. Reading Mum’s journal didn’t help. And Ezzy didn’t wake me, though I don’t blame her for that. So many questions, but they will have to wait as today is the last day of Call Week.
The Rec Hall stinks as I shove the doors open. Sweat, fear, burnt magic. No windows low enough to open, just slits near the ceiling where a bit of light sneaks through, but the seats are built in rings around the centre mat, so no matter where you’re sitting, you’ve got front-row tickets to the bloodbath.
It’s already packed when I get here—the first fights started, guess it wasn't my name that was called.Yet. I slip inside and spot an empty seat halfway up the rows.
No Finn. No Rowan. Definitely no Ezzy, of course not, I tore everything apart.
Now I get to sit here by myself, in the middle of a goddamn death pit, waiting to find out if the Citadel’s sense of justice decides if I’m next.
Head down, I shift past cadets as I make my way up the rows toward the seat, alone, just like I’ve done for the past four days.
The first day of Call Week was brutal. It sank into my bones like rot. It started at dawn. Cold air, tight silence. Then a name was called, and someone died.
Everyone acted like it was just another drill. A test. A game, even. But under the forced grins and thrum of energy, there was something wrong in the way they cheered. Something fractured in the way cadets leant forward when a name was called, like dogs scenting blood.
And the worst part?
Most of themlikedit. No—lovedit.
