I sigh, and I can feel tears returning to my eyes. It seems like there has been nothing but hostility and death since I came here, so a few kind words go a long way. Not long ago my life was full of love and laughter. “And you?”

He doesn’t answer right away and looks down at his hands. “You remind me of someone.”

“Oh.”

“Someone I grew up with.” He looks over at me. “She was fast and strong and funny as all hell. And there was something so free about her, like the whole world was hers if she wanted it. I used to be envious of her, how she always saw the best in everyone, even when they disappointed her.”

“You guys aren’t friends anymore?”

“She wasn’t Strategia,” he says, and his voice tightens.

“What does that mean? You stopped being friends with her for that?”

“I was told to, warned,” he says, and pauses. “But I was just a kid. I was stubborn, and I thought if I could just keep her away from my Family until I was supposed to go away to school, it wouldn’t matter.” He sighs. “And then one day she snuck into my house while there was a Family meeting going on, and my father caught her. He was furious. I swore to him that she didn’t hear anything. I promised I would talk to her, end our friendship….”

I have a sinking feeling in my gut. “Oh no.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes. “There was a fire in her house the next day.” He rubs his forehead—the kind of tell he never shows. “And a month later Layla and I came here.”

I don’t need to ask if she died, because I can see the guilt written all over him. I’m fairly certain he was in love with her.

I smile.

He frowns. “Don’t you think smiling at a story like that is bad form?”

“I’m smiling because it proves that under all those carefully controlled looks and that distracting flirting you’re capable of real emotion.”

“Wait just a minute, my flirting is not distracting. My flirting is captivating, weak-knees quality.”

“And I’m smiling because that story shows you also think of me as a friend,” I say.

“I do think about you,” he says, even though that’s not what I said, and for a second we just stare at each other. Then all of a sudden he looks away.

I clear my throat. “Where’s Layla?”

“Library,” he says.

I suddenly feel guilty. I’m sure she’s doing research, trying to figure out how to get me out of this mess, and I’m hiding in my bed.

“In the dining hall earlier—” he says, as if reading my mind.

“Yes. I remembered something. A conversation with”—my voice catches—“my aunt. My mom’s sister.”

He nods and it’s clear that he understands she was the one who died.

“She said that my parents’ Families were fighting before I was ever born. And after what you told me about the Lions and the Bears—”