Ash makes his way across the room to the window blotted out with a heavy curtain. “The sill is big enough. Go from below and try not to pull the curtain out too far. If light gets through, the guards outside might see it and come up here. Don’t sit down on the sill—stand and press your back against the side of the window arch. And get yourself into a position that you can stay in for a few hours and where you have flexibility of movement without making any noise. If someone pats the curtain, you have to be ready to move so that the fabric doesn’t touch your body and give us away.”

For a moment I just stare at him, thinking he can’t possibly mean what he’s saying. But he gives no indication that he is anything but serious.

I gulp. “So I’m going to be hiding for hours against a second-story window in a room with someone who probably wouldn’t think twice about pushing me out of it? And there is a real possibility that someone is going to check the curtain, and I’ll have to avoid their hand?”

“Yes,” Ash says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Then he pulls out the curtain just enough for me to shinny under it. “You first.”

“How are we going to get back out?” I ask, and realize I’ve taken a step away from the curtain, not toward it.

“We wait until they go to sleep and we’re quiet about it,” he says.

“And if someone sleeps on the couch?”

“Then we’re stuck here for the night, or we have to take our chances with sneaking past them,” he says, and pauses. “You need to get under this curtain now, unless you want them to walk in and catch us outright.”

I walk toward him, dreading the moment when Aarya returns.

Ash watches me carefully. I bend down, hesitantly touching the curtain.

Ash sighs. “Go back to your room, November,” he says, and I stop what I’m doing.

“Excuse me?”

“Seriously, go back. You can’t do this if you’re not confident. You’ll give us away in a minute. Go. Quickly, before this is all a waste.”

I stand, pushing my hair back from my face, and he gives me a hard look. I want to say something, to protest, but he’s right. There’s no time. And the only thing that would make this whole thing worse would be getting caught because I’m lingering stupidly.