For the first time in my life I had trouble eating. Judging by the number of meals they’d brought me, I’d been here a full two days by now. The lights had abruptly gone out for the night a few hours after a dinner tray had been delivered to me, the food going cold and untouched—the sight of it alone made my stomach turn. My appetite had not returned this morning, and now a guard took away my breakfast tray and replaced it with a lunch tray. I greedily drank the water, but after trying one bite of the dry sandwich, I pushed it away and curled back up on the bed.

I blotted my eyes with the sleeves of the uniform they had given me. They felt bruised and sore.

If Carlo was my soul mate, then I would never have a click in this lifetime. But if he wasn’t, that meant they were still out there. I could have a click as soon as I turned eighteen. I was an Awakened—had drunk from the Golden Chalice. Even if I wanted to stay true to my original plan—which was to avoid next year’s Gathering, like Adrian had done—there was still a chance I’d be in the same place as my soul mate and make physical contact with them. Maybe we’d accidentally brush shoulders at the beach, or there would be an introductory handshake—any skin-to-skin touch and a click would be triggered.

There had to be a way to break it. Some kind of ancient way of undoing what had been done. What had we learned about our Awakening? My annoying selective memory came up with nothing. All I desperately wanted now was freedom. Freedom from this cell so I could find a way to free myself from the possibility of getting stuck with my soul mate for life.

There was no way my Hellenic textbooks had the answers I was looking for. I would have remembered something if it had come up in my lessons. Wait. Maybe the Court had stored information about this. Maybe this was the kind of information Royals were privy to. Kris hadn’t lived at Court since she was ten years old, so I’d have better luck asking either Vlad or Adrian. Both of them had grown up here and had gone to the Royal High Court Academy, and Adrian still lived here.

Yes. I would start with them.