“You can’t.” He spoke the words bluntly. She couldn’t know he was answering his own question as well. He wanted to run away almost as much as she did. But the Rain Wilds was no place for either of them. Difficult as things were at home, they didn’t belong here. As often as he told himself that he could not go back, he knew even more clearly that he could not stay here.

She hung her head, looking at the floor, almost as if she had lost something there. When she brought her eyes up to meet his, a blush reddened her windburned cheeks to an even darker shade. “I came into your room while you were gone. When I thought you might be drowned and forever lost to me. I felt terrible at how I had neglected you. I imagined a hundred terrible things had befallen you—that you were dead, or lying injured somewhere, stranded and alone.” Her eyes wandered over his face, lingering on his bruises. “So I tidied your room and took your clothing to wash, thinking that if you did return, you’d know how badly I’d felt. And in the course of doing that, of straightening your bedding and so on, I—what’s that?”

He’d been dreading what she was obviously about to tell him. She’d found the secret compartment and the vials of scales and blood. But the look of shock on her face now startled him. She leaned closer to him, lifting a hand. He leaned away from it, but she touched the side of his face anyway. Her fingers slid down his cheek and trailed along his jawline. She’d never touched him in such a way, let alone looked at him with such horror.

“Sweet Sa have mercy,” she said breathlessly. “Sedric. You’ve begun to scale.”

“No!” He denied it fiercely. He jerked his face from her touch, replaced her hands with his own, and ran his fingers over his face. What did he feel? What was this? “No, it’s only roughness, Alise. The river water scalded me, and then I was out in the wind and the sun. It’s not scaling! I’m not a Rain Wilder, why would I grow scales? Don’t be foolish, Alise! Don’t be foolish!”