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“You can be whoever and whatever you want.” He says it so easily, as if by speaking it aloud, he can force it into truth. “The Minor Court can’t take that from you, no matter how hard they try.”

“Nothing is like I thought it would be, like it was supposed to be.” I inhale slowly, deliberately. “I’m so tired, Nero.”

“Your reasons for joining the Trials are more valid than most of the other champions’. The Dregs needs you. Your family needs you.” He sounds tense for the first time since he started this conversation.

“My family.” I choke out a laugh. “The woman who died in the arena last night? She was my best friend; more than a friend, really. She didn’t want me to enter the Trials at all, but she supported me even if she didn’t agree with my choice. She promised to watch out for my family while I was gone.” Every word is a knife in my lungs. Twisting, twisting, twisting. “And now she’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.” He even sounds like he means it.

“The person the Wands put in the arena. Who were they to you?”

Nero is silent for several beats. “An innkeeper. I had enough money to make it to Caelria after my family died, but I ran out quickly after arriving. He let me stay in his barn in exchange for mucking the stalls. He had a boy he already paid for that chore. He didn’t have to give me a safe space to sleep and three meals a day, but he did it because he was kind. And now he’s dead.”

The sensation in my chest gets worse. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

The water is so warm and smells so good. All I want is to sink down and never surface. “Is this what it means to be a member of the Concilium? Powerful enough to fuel our ambition but not to keep those we care about safe?” My voice goes thick. “Being a member of the Sword Court didn’t save Vesper when they were a child. No one is safe.”

“Don’t you dare give up.”

“I’m not.” I don’t think so, at least. I don’t want to die; the only option left is to live. To kill. To survive. “I just want to close my eyes for a little while.”

“Kestrel…”

I don’t want to hear any more. We can talk ourselves in circles and hold our goals close to keep going, but I don’t want to take another step right now. I slip under the water without closing my eyes. Darkness isn’t the goal; it’s silence. Beneath the surface, that’s what greets me. No questions, no answers just beyond my reach. I’m simply existing, the press of the water all around me. It’s not like in the space between shadows where there’s nothing to ground my senses. Light flickers over the surface of the bath overhead. The weight of the water is a real thing. I sink down to the floor of the bath, resting comfortably on the lightly textured stone. Hard stone with no give at all.

My chest burns, but I ignore it, unwilling to leave this perfect peace. Not yet, not until I have absolutely no other choice. Reality always comes, whether I want it to or not. It will, this time, too. But not until I choose it.

Movement at the edge of my dancing vision makes me turn my head, but I’m too slow. I get a flash of the shadow of a pale body, and then strong hands close around my upper arms and drag me back to the surface.

I gasp, sweet air searing my lungs, and stare up into Nero’s wild dark eyes. “What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” He shakes me, gripping me tightly enough that I distantly suspect I’ll have bruises later. Or I will if I don’t survive long enough for the Moon to heal me. “You can’t give up.”

“I’m not giving up.” I go to push him away, but my brain clicks off when my palms encounter bare skin. He’s wearing the same thing I am, which is to say, nothing at all. I stare at the space where my hands rest against his chest. He’s even paler than I am, his skin truly Moon-white. “Nero?” I don’t know what I’m asking. I don’t know anything at all.

His grip loosens, but only a little. “Kestrel.” He drags in a deep breath, his chest expanding against my touch. Nero tips back his head and closes his eyes, his expression downright pained. “Kestrel, please.”

Someone needs to step away and do it now. This is the height of recklessness, to the point where it’s downright suicidal. The Sun may still be in the sky, but the Moon will rise soon enough, and when They do, we’ll be expected to fight to the death.

“Nero,” I whisper. The truth blooms inside me, the thing I’ve been trying so hard to ignore since the moment I woke up after being touched by the Moon and realized nothing about the Trials is what I expected. “I’m so scared.”

He takes another deep breath that somehow brings us closer together. His hands drop from my arms to my hips. In that moment, he becomes someone different. Not just a champion, not even the Tower, who should be an enemy but is somehow the only one I understand. He presses his fingertips to the curve of my ass. The touch is light and almost nonexistent. If every part of me wasn’t focused on him, I might not feel it at all.

But I do feel it. The faint pressure goes through me like a lightning strike. His heart races against my palm. If I wasn’t drowning in the sound of my own thundering pulse, I might be able to hear his.

He finally opens his eyes, the brown swallowed by the pupil. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

“I know.” And I do.

Nero slowly, achingly slowly, shifts one of his hands to the small of my back and lifts his other hand to brush my wet hair back from my face. He doesn’t move away once that task is accomplished, either. He cups my face and stares intently into my eyes. “I won’t hurt you.”

What if I want you to?

I’m not foolhardy enough to speak that, no matter what else is happening here. Not when I feel at home in my skin for the first time since I pledged myself to the Moon. I hadn’t even realized how strange things had gotten until this moment when I feel like me—Kestrel, a woman who knows her strength and determination. A survivor.

But I’m not only her. Not anymore.