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Portia, still in lynx form, somehow managed to look condescending without saying a word.

Mistress Fenwick stopped in front of me.

She studied me for several seconds before speaking, and when she did, her voice was gentle.

That made it worse.

"There's no shame in it, Miss Hale," she said. "Some people are simply built without a door. You can sit the rest of this lesson out."

So I did.

I sat on the low wall at the edge of the yard with my knees together and watched everyone else become what they were.

For the rest of the afternoon, I kept hearing Fenwick's words.

Built without a door.

I hated the certainty of them.

More than that, I kept thinking about what I had felt beneath the ache.

Something had moved.

I was almost certain of it.

The release form stayed under my pillow that night.

It stayed there the following night too.

Every morning, I told myself I only needed one more day. One more day to find out whether whatever I had felt in the yard would happen again.

On the fourth day, Tamsin appeared beside me in the corridor.

"You are coming to the Pit."

"I'm not."

"You are. You've spent days hiding in that tower. You need to leave your room, and apparently the only thing this school reliably provides for entertainment is violence."

The Pit occupied the center of the south courtyard, a sunken circular arena about twelve feet deep. Rough stone walls enclosed a floor of dark sand, while tiers of benches rose around it on every side. The place smelled of sweat, blood, damp stone, and salt from the sea.

Half the school seemed to be packed into the seats.

Two men were fighting in the ring below.

They were both in human form, barefoot and bare-chested, with no gloves or protective gear. One was a large blond Fenhall senior with heavy shoulders and enough size to make most people reconsider fighting him.

The other was smaller, leaner, dark-haired, and laughing.

I recognized him from my first night at Ironmoor. He had been sitting at the Solace table with his boots on the bench, laughing half a beat after everyone else.

He was laughing now as well.

He kept moving just beyond the blond student's reach, never wasting energy and never making a motion he didn't need. His skin was golden brown and slick with sweat, and a spotted animal tattoo curved over his left shoulder. Dark hair kept falling across his forehead, and every few seconds he pushed it back before grinning at his opponent again.

“Jax Rivera,” Tamsin shouted beside me, raising her voice so I could hear her over the crowd. “Solace. Jaguar. He’s been unbeaten since he got here, and he flirts with anything capable of breathing.”

The blond fighter swung a wide right hook, but Jax ducked beneath it, stepped inside his reach, and took him to the ground so quickly that I barely understood what had happened before the other man landed flat on his back in the sand.