It was an awfully Sel thing to do, using a phrase I don’t know in a language I don’t speak.

Calling me “cariad” was an open door without a direct invitation. He knew that I’d need to make the active choice to understand him. But that day on the balcony, I didn’t make a choice. Or I guess, in a way, I did—by taking no action at all. Not asking him to translate, not pushing him to explain what sounded like an endearment. After the Regents’ emissaries arrived and it became clear the dust would never settle, I became angry. If Sel truly wanted me to know what he meant that day, he should have said it in English instead of implicitly expecting me to look it up and do the work for him.

I can’t help but wonder if that friction created the distance between us, before the guarding and the wards and ordering our friends to protect me behind my back.

“Nothing to say about our previous discussion?” he asks. “Or had you forgotten that detail in your current, immature display of defiance?”

My head snaps back. I resist the urge to stomp my foot… and further prove his point. “You are being such a jerk right now.”

A callous smile twists Sel’s mouth. “After your antics tonight? I think I’m allowed. You told Erebus you’re ready for the Rite, but are you really?” The question stops me short.

The Rite will change everything. Make it all real. Finally get us—all of us—out of the holding pattern and into the fight we’ve been training for.

“Yes. I’ve been rehearsing with William.” I raise my chin, steel my spine, because if Sel believes nothing else from me tonight, I need him to believe this. “I am more than ready.”

He nods, satisfied. “Good.”

There’s one more thing I need him to know. “Sel, I am sorry about the position I put you in tonight with Erebus and the Mageguard.”

He searches my features for a long moment. “If you are truly sorry for your actions, you will stay in your room for the rest of the evening.” He chuckles darkly, backing away. “Or should I say his room?”

I flush. When the Regents ordered me out of the dorms, it was still sinking in that my life would never be the same again. I could have chosen an unassigned, unoccupied room; there are plenty in the Lodge. But I didn’t. I chose Nick’s. “It was just… where I felt…”

“Safe?” he asks.

I wrap my arms around myself. “I never said that.”

His smile is tight and humorless. “You never had to.”