Before I could respond, Corban sat down, and Tess joined him a second later. I glanced behind them to see that Regan had apparently decided to forgo lunch to sit over in the simulation section by herself, the gigantic copy of All the Gallant Men open on her lap. And for the first time, I felt a stab of guilt for my behavior. She hadn’t gotten angry when I wasn’t spectacular during the Sherlock class. Meanwhile she’d been knocking it out of the park, a fact that I probably would have noticed if I hadn’t been so distracted by my desire to see her fail. Which, I reminded myself, was just plain stupid, since if she went down, I went down too. We were on the Titanic together, and I was over here yelling “Aim for that iceberg!” And I’d called her dumb. No sooner had the words gone through my head than I wished they hadn’t. I’d conveniently forgotten what I’d said to her back on the dock. Time for an apology.

With a sigh I shoved myself to my feet and grabbed my salad off my tray. After a quick pass of the lunch counter to grab a second salad, I made my way across the atrium to where Regan sat, her forehead scrunched in concentration as she read chapter two. My first reaction was to roll my eyes that she was only on chapter two, but remembering Sam’s words, I shoved down my knee-jerk instinct and took a seat next to her.

“Here,” I said, thrusting the salad into her hands.

She looked up in surprise and blinked at me. “What’s this?” she asked.

This time I couldn’t stop the eye roll. “What’s it look like? It’s food. Eat it. I don’t want you all fuzzy-headed for simulation training this afternoon.” She looked from the salad to me and back again, a wary look on her face.

“What?” I asked, making zero effort to hide my exasperation. “You think I spit on it?”

“Did you?” she asked.

“No!” I said, and it took everything in me not to let the old familiar anger fizz back to the surface. I took a deep breath and tried on a smile, which might have been a mistake because it made her look even more nervous. This was not going the way I’d pictured it. “It’s a peace offering. You know, for before,” I said, flapping a hand that I hoped encompassed twelve years of general rudeness and animosity. She still looked unconvinced, which, considering my peace offering was a lackluster salad with soggy croutons, was not all that surprising.

She studied me for a second longer and then took a bite of her salad. “I can’t stop thinking about our schedule dissolving this morning,” she said. “The last few days have been so busy that I almost forgot about that Cocoon.”