“They’re not our allies,” Hector said, heat creeping into his voice. “Hassan, come on. You pretended to be the Prophet, Jude disappeared with the actual Prophet, and I broke my oath. On the list of people they want to ally with, we’re ranked pretty low.”

“Not lower than the Hierophant,” Hassan replied stubbornly. “We should at least try to contact them. We’re out of options.”

“What about the Lost Rose people?” Hector asked. “Still no answer from them?”

Hassan shook his head.

“So their whole plan of guarding the Relics failed and now their worst nightmare is unfolding and they’re—what? Off touring the islands?”

“I don’t know,” Hassan replied. The only reason he even knew the Lost Rose existed was because he’d found a scroll in the Great Library in Nazirah, hidden there by his father. A covenant that had said the Lost Rose were protectors of the Four Sacred Relics, the origins of the Graces.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part, the idea that this secret network of guardians could come to their aid. Maybe it was the fact that his father had been connected, somehow, to these people, that gave him a glimmer of hope. And when Jude had told him that he’d met their leader in Endarrion, that she’d returned the Relic of Heart and helped lead them to the Relic of Sight—it had felt like a sign that the Lost Rose was out there somewhere, guiding them. But Hassan felt foolish, childish, when he let himself think that way.

No one was coming to fix this for them.

“Maybe…” Hassan trailed off with a glance at Hector. He wasn’t sure he should finish the thought, but he pressed on anyway. “Maybe I should go back to Nazirah.”

Hector’s eyes widened.

Hassan had made his choice—two months ago, when they were still picking up the pieces, cobbling together some semblance of a plan out of the wreckage of Behezda. Hassan could have gone back to Nazirah, to join back up with Khepri, Zareen, and the others against Lethia, now that she was weakened without the Hierophant’s presence in Nazirah.

He hadn’t. He’d stayed, alongside Jude and Hector, for a chance to stop the Hierophant—Pallas. For a chance to help them rescue Beru, the girl with the power of a god. He thought it had been the right choice at the time—save the world to save his people.

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

The door creaked open again, and Jude shouldered into the room, his gaze pinned to the floor and his whole body pinched with weariness. A terse silence descended, one that seemed to grow more pointed each time the three of them were in a room together.

“There’s food downstairs,” Jude said tonelessly as he stripped off his threadbare jacket.

“Ate already,” Hector said.