The other four trainees came off of the arena, covered in sweat but laughing and jovial. Kerrigan kept her face carefully blank. She couldn’t let them see her in distress. Kerrigan was quieter than normal, but no one commented on it. How could any of them blame her?

She still had to go to all of her regular lessons. The new air instructor was nothing like Zina with her eccentricities. Frankly, he was boring. The rest of the lessons were even more grueling. She’d received no word from Zina after her disappearance, and it took two whole days before she heard back from Dozan. A short missive that said Clover and Hadrian had made it out of the massacre. Clover hadn’t come herself to deliver the message. She’d gotten it from one of Dozan’s little spies. It was at least a relief that they were alive, but she couldn’t imagine what was keeping Clover away.

She felt very lonely without any word from any of her friends and isolated from the four that she had been making these months of training. Probation loomed overhead like a dark cloud threatening rain.

“Pst,” Audria said, peeking her head into Kerrigan’s bedroom one night a couple of weeks into her grounding.

Kerrigan looked up from the parchment she’d been working on for her philosophy assignment. “Hey.”

Audria pressed a finger to her lips and nodded down the hall. “Come with me.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Are we going to get in trouble?”

“No, of course not.”

But Audria had mischief in her eyes. Kerrigan recognized it because it was like looking in a mirror.

“I can’t. If I get in trouble, then I’m kicked out.”

“You won’t get in trouble,” Audria insisted. “We’d never let that happen. It’s a spot of fun.”

Kerrigan frowned and shook her head. No fun for her.

Audria huffed. “You can’t shut us all out like this.”

Shut them out? She wasn’t doing anything of the sort. “I’m not.”

“Maybe you don’t see it, but you are. You’re even shutting out Fordham.” Audria gave her a pointed look. “Just come have a fun night with us. You need it most of all.”

Kerrigan should argue. The last thing she needed was to do something that would get her in trouble. She couldn’t be kicked out of the Society. She had little else in her life, and it would mean being without Tieran forever.

But she didn’t argue. She wanted to get away from her studies and be with her friends. Audria usually had a good idea about whether or not she’d get in trouble. Not that she knew what it was like to be half-Fae. Kerrigan would take the fall even if the others were caught as well. That was how it always was.