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None of it matters now—the petty rivalry, the resentment. It was child’s play, I now understand. Now we face the real Dark. We were so privileged before, squabbling over things as trivial as class rank or a captain’s pin. Now the cold reality of the Dark washes over me.

My weak heart shuts down. And cold logic comes. It’s situations just like this that make me thankful it’s in pieces, because when I close my eyes, it comes to me. “Order,” I whisper.

“What?” Lonan asks, lifting his head.

“The test is chaos versus order. We have to create order.”

He glances around the room. People are clinging to anything they can, trying desperately to hold on. But the floor is rapidly tilting, and the walls are closing in. I can smell fear in the air. “How?”

I don’t honestly know. We’ve been taught how to maintain our calm in battle. But we’re untested, and this is unlike anything we ever expected to face. The students surrender to chaos, and the Ridding is taking notice. The instinct for panic is being taken as disloyalty to the Light. Lonan’s face is calm, assessing, and then I see a familiar expression cross his features. I’m close enough to see the moment his eyes go cold and determined.

He gently pulls me off him and plants me against the column. The floor is at least a thirty percent decline toward the chasm in the center. But—Saints below—he steps out onto the open floor. It continues to tilt. The walls slide closer. The chandelier dangles like a slowly descending guillotine. And Lonan holds on to nothing. His sword flares to life and then he shouts, wielding that tone of command he uses with our cohort.

“Meigas!” he shouts. “You are students of Gossemort! You are being tested. You have training—now is the time to use it. Remember the Light!” At first, his words have little effect. They’re screaming, crying, shoving each other to get better purchase. Lonan slams his sword against a nearby column, scarlet sparks flying. “Order! The Dark wants us in chaos. It wants your panic! Don’t give it! Don’t surrender!”

The floor is slipping, and I see Lonan straining to stay upright. The room does not listen. The chandelier overhead suddenly jerks downward, falling several feet all at once, and several students scream.

But then I catch sight of a girl on the other side of the room. She watches Lonan as she huddles by the door, clinging to the ankle of a friend so she doesn’t fall into the chasm. She is one of the youngest, her face round as a cherry. But she doesn’t scream. Instead her lips move—she’s counting her breaths just as we were taught in our very first combat classes, centering herself, remembering reason.

I mouth the numbers with her, breathe with her. And it’s then that a memory springs from the depths of my mind. When my mother left, I was given to seasons of reckless panic interspersed with my brokenhearted numbness. I had nightmares. And my father would come into my room, and he would sing to me.

And then I begin to sing.

I think I was born a poet, drawn to the lilting lines of every nursery rhyme and the rhythm of rain and the beauty of language from the moment I could speak it. But if there was a moment, one where I realized I needed poetry to breathe, where I fell head over heels for the one thing that sustained me through every dark hour, it was when my father sang to me. Lullabies were my first poems. And it’s one of them that I sing now.

I’m no trained singer. My voice breaks from fear, starting small.

And then I meet Lonan’s eyes across the space between us, him standing with his sword glowing, refusing to move, refusing to fear even as the room closes in.

This might not work. And if it doesn’t, I will go down singing.

Chapter Thirteen

It’s an old nursery rhyme. One we all heard as children—something ridiculous about a blackbird being baked into a pie who then flies through the pastry and bites the king on the nose.

I sing it, and I hold Lonan’s gaze. He won’t move. I’m desperate for him to come back, to stop trying to be brave. He’s showing the others what calm looks like, what facing the Dark can do. I don’t want him to lead. I want him to be safe.

It’s a feeling, a conviction, that I don’t have time or ability to process. I only know that I cannot look away from those eyes—dark as night, deep without end, holding mine with resolve that I didn’t realize I admired until this moment.

And then a voice joins. It’s Poppy—behind me, where she and Hugo still resist the downward tilt of the floor. It inclines farther. Lonan stumbles, and I raise my voice, singing louder. Inexplicably, tears form in the corners of my eyes.

I never cry. My heart is broken. So I have no explanation for moisture in my eyes or the thickness in my throat as I hold Lonan’s gaze and continue my song.

It’s ridiculous. It’s not a song of hope or bravery, not a battle cry. But voices join, and they become louder, till there is no more wailing or screaming. The room closes in. And the floor falls further. But our voices are all that is heard.

Fear will not win here. Should every one of us fall, in the end, we will not be afraid.

Some start to chuckle, meeting each other’s eyes and singing along like it’s a tavern song. Roland lifts his voice over the others, and on this verse he replaces the king with Headmaster Van Asten, and laughter breaks out.

Lonan, his eyes still on mine, smiles.

Hugo takes a step out onto the floor, releasing his hold on the pillar. Lonan’s gaze finally shifts away from mine to Hugo, who is watching his captain and taking tentative steps across a floor that is still falling. They are showing the spirits of Gossemort that they are not afraid. Whatever peril awaits, chaos is defeated.

And then Hugo sings the verse again, this time keeping Van Asten but changing “nose” to “balls.” Some of the girls groan, and the boys burst out in laughter. Hugo takes another tentative step toward Lonan, whose shoulders sag in relief. He smiles as Hugo reaches for him and grabs his shoulder. There’s such solidarity, such brotherhood, in the moment that my chest aches, and I sing louder.

And as the verse starts up again, I step away from the column. The floor has not stopped tilting. The walls have not stopped closing in. The chandelier is close enough now that if I were in the center of the room, I could nearly reach up and touch the lowest spikes that hang from its constellation of crystals. But still I sing.

I look back at Poppy. Her expression is both hopeful and sad. She walks onto the floor as well, releasing the column. I turn back to Lonan, taking a step, and for a moment, my foot slips. I jerk toward the floor, catching myself on the staff of my scythe. When I look up, Lonan’s expression is momentarily panicked. But then I lift my voice again—louder, more determined. I am nothing if not obstinate.