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"The Charter is not a sword," she said. "It cannot defeat the Council for you. But it is a shield, and shields are most useful when your enemy is forced to strike them in public."

I thought of Marion in a gray room.

"Can it protect her?"

Pain moved briefly through Oda's great gold eyes.

"Not directly. But if Aldric gives me an opening, I may be able to make keeping her more costly than releasing her."

"Is that a promise?"

"No," Oda said. "It is a plan."

For the moment, that was enough.

Silas spent that final night in the Pit alone, with Oda's permission. He said he needed time to get used to the feel of the sand in the dark, so when I heard footsteps climbing the tower stairs a little before midnight, I knew they weren't his. They were too light and uneven, and every few steps they stopped altogether. In the silence that followed, I could hear someone draw a careful breath through clenched teeth before starting up again.

Jax didn't knock. He never did.

He eased himself through the doorway with one arm folded across his ribs and leaned against the frame, studying me where I sat upright in bed with the lamp on and On the Sleeping Beast open across my knees. He didn't grin.

That was how I knew something was wrong. Jax Rivera could find a reason to grin through almost anything.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

"You're already in."

"I mean properly."

He glanced down at the floorboards, then looked back at me. His swollen eye had faded from purple to an ugly mottled green, while the other stayed dark and steady on mine.

"I've been thinking, reina. All week. Ever since you knelt on that floor and called me an idiot." His mouth tightened slightly. "You were right. I am one."

"Jax—"

"No. Let me say it. I'm bad at this." He took a careful breath, shallow enough not to pull at his ribs. "For five years, the only thing I've been worth anything for is this." He lifted one hand. The skin across his knuckles was split and half healed. "Fists. Fighting. Winning. Mateo is alive because of these. Mamá still has the flat because of these. Every month I go down under the salt and make sure we get another month."

His hand dropped back to his side. "Somewhere along the way, I forgot there was supposed to be anything else. I got so used to being useful because I could win that I stopped remembering what it felt like to be wanted for no reason except that someone wanted me."

He looked directly at me then.

"I don't want to be the thing that wins tonight," he said. "I just want to be here with you, if you'll let me."

I closed the book and set it on the floor. Then I held out my bandaged hand.

He crossed the room and took it gently, careful not to press against the burns. I tugged him toward me until he sat on the edge of the narrow iron bed.

The infirmary had examined him again that afternoon. His ribs were knitting quickly under shifter healing, quickly enough that the healer had muttered something unkind about unfair biology, but he was still sore and had been given strict instructions to avoid anything strenuous.

I had decided to take that instruction seriously.

I had been thinking about this all week too, and tomorrow might leave us with no time for anything. I had already spent twenty-two years waiting for someone else to tell me what I was permitted to want.

So I put my hand flat against his chest and pushed.

Not hard. Just enough to send him back against the pillows with a surprised little sound.

He stared up at me.