THE ROOM COMES into focus little by little, the flickering candle, the wooden canopy, a face. And I remember what happened.

“November?” Layla says with concern in her voice.

I turn away from her and shut my eyes. “Go away.”

Someone shakes me. “Get up,” a voice says.

I open my swollen eyes. “Stop.”

“I’ll stop when you get up,” Ash says.

“I’m not getting up. Just leave me alone.” I put a pillow over my face, but he yanks it away from me.

“It’s been a day. Everyone gets a day to feel sorry for themselves. But no one gets two. You need to get up and eat something and drink some water.”

“Feel sorry for myself? Feel sorry for myself? Screw you, Ash,” I say, and my voice wavers. “I don’t care about this damn school or being a Strategia. I just don’t care.”

He sighs. “Well, whether you care or not, your stunt in the dining hall yesterday made you even more of a target than before. So you don’t really have a choice.”

All I want is for this heart-crushing feeling to stop, for my life to go back to the way it was before this school, when my aunt was alive and my dad and I had a quiet life in Pembrook. I put the blankets over my head. “People are already trying to kill me—how much worse can it get?”

“They will succeed,” he says, and pulls the blankets off me. I swipe at him, but he catches my wrist. I try to pry his fingers loose but he grabs my other hand.

“Let go of me, Ashai,” I say.

“No. I will not let you do this to yourself.”

“Well, you don’t get to make that choice.”

His intensity increases. “And what choice are you making? To stay in bed until someone comes and slits your throat? Believe me, you’re not far off from that. Or maybe you want to stay here until Blackwood hauls you off to the dungeon, too?”

I yank at my wrists, trying to pull them out of his grasp.

His jaw is set. “You’re sad and angry and you can’t think past your emotions. But at some point those emotions will fade and you’ll realize you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life. Only by then it’ll be too late.”

I’m getting so mad I want to scream or cry or both. “Why do you even care? It shouldn’t matter to you.”

“It does matter.”

I scoff and try to get my feet free from the blankets.

But he doesn’t let go—in fact, he hoists me out of the bed. I kick at him, but he blocks and turns us around so that he’s standing between me and the bed. He lets go of my wrists.

“Really? You’re going to prevent me from getting into my own bed?” I say, and I’m furious, all that anger I felt toward Matteo and this awful school rushing back.