Distantly, she registered that somewhere in the back of her mind, she had been waiting for this. For Illya to reach out after their brief but strange meeting with the Hierophant. Ephyra had tried to shove that conversation into the dustiest corner of her mind, but to her irritation, she’d returned to it countless times in the past six days.

She could not deny what she’d heard—Illya had outright lied to the Hierophant. He’d said that Ephyra didn’t know how to use her Grace to heal, even though he was living proof that she did. Three distinct possibilities had sprouted in her mind.

The first, that for some reason Illya didn’t want the Hierophant to know that Ephyra was, in fact, capable of healing.

The second, that Illya had lied to the Hierophant knowing Ephyra would recognize it as a lie, in the hopes of conveying some sort of message. What kind of message, Ephyra hated to even consider. She felt like a fool, entertaining the possibility that Illya had been trying to show her he was truly on her side and always had been, or something equally asinine.

And then there was the third possibility, the one that was easiest to believe—that it was a setup. That he was trying to trick her into trusting him again.

She thought about how he’d touched her, just a tiny graze of his thumb against her wrist. Like it could have been an accident. But she was sure it hadn’t been. She just didn’t know what it meant.

And now this. A message written in a code that only the two of them would understand.

Cursing herself, she searched the room for something Illya might have used to make his code. Several stout candles sat on a table beside the bed. There were probably candles exactly like them in every room in the villa. She picked one up and wrapped the strip of paper around it, lining up each edge until the letters spelled out a message along the length of the candle.

Meet on roof.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. The message, and the fact that Illya had left it in the fireplace, meant one thing—Illya knew that Ephyra had discovered a way to sneak out of her room.

Yet, he apparently hadn’t ratted her out to the Hierophant.

She looked back down at the note. She couldn’t trust him. She knew that. She tore the paper into tiny scraps, scattering them back in the fireplace.

She didn’t want to fall into another one of Illya’s traps. But she was tired of sitting in her room, doing nothing. And she couldn’t deny that she was curious.