“So, just to be clear, Twelve’s personality made you say it?” If Silver’s voice had been any colder, the air around them would have frozen.

Five licked his lips and made a noise like a mouse pinned down by a cat.

“Speak the Pledge,” Silver commanded, her fingertips white where they pressed together.

Five blinked in surprise and quickly covered it with a cough. The Pledge was given every morning at breakfast and every evening at dinner, but it was unusual to hear it outside those times. He spoke rapidly, the words automatic after years of repetition.

“I pledge my life to the Hunting Lodge.

I vow to serve all seven clans as my own,

To protect them from what lies beyond.

I forsake all blood ties and blood feuds,

To offer up my name and my past.

The Hunters are my family now and always.

I swear before them that I will never lower my weapons

In the face of darkness,

Nor allow tyranny to rise.”

In the silence that dripped off his last syllable, a log in the fire shifted and sparks whirled up the chimney. Twelve suppressed a shudder.

“To forsake all blood ties and blood feuds,” Silver said meditatively. “What does that mean to you, Five?”

“To forget which clan we came from and to accept them all as equal,” he said, his voice shaking slightly.

“Exactly,” Silver said, her tone clipped and precise. “It’s the lodge’s most important and most difficult rule: never to mention your past lives, never to speak of the clans and families you once held dear. It’s the ultimate sacrifice, but one vital to the trust between lodge and clans. You would jeopardize all of that just to throw an insult at a student you don’t like?”

Five opened his mouth to speak, but Silver cut him off, her voice shaking with suppressed emotion.

“If word of these incidents spread across Ember, do you think the clans would still invite us to their villages to hunt the dark creatures that plague them? Would they think of us as impartial? Trust us to arbitrate their disputes with neutrality? How long do you think it would be before war broke out again?” Silver shook her head in disgust. “You speak the words of the Pledge without thinking, without considering what they mean. I suggest you remedy that immediately.” She took a deep breath. “I’d like a minute to talk to Twelve alone. You can wait outside until I decide your punishment.”

Five gulped and hurried out, his face waxen.

“That boy,” Victory sighed. “He thinks the world owes him something.”

“Reminds me of someone else I know,” Silver said, the corner of her mouth quirking up.

Victory looked affronted. “Me? I was nothing like him.” She paused, her brow furrowed. “Was I?”

Silver shrugged good-naturedly and glanced at Twelve. The humor faded from her face.

“You could have killed someone, Twelve,” she said.