Conner strokes his beard and paces in front of me, seemingly relaxed. “I knew when I offered you those two chairs during our first assessment that you didn’t like having your back to the door—you don’t like being vulnerable to the unknown. You prefer details, information. You gauge your surroundings and exits, like you’re doing here right now,” he says. “But you also didn’t want the chair that I was standing behind—you don’t like being pushed by other people or dominated in any way. So you made your own seat.”

I swallow. It reminds me of what Dad told me about thinking differently. He knew I would go up against other Strategia eventually—and the only real advantage he could give me was to not think like them, not fight like them.

I want you to think of unusual and creative solutions. And I want you to see the world in your own unique way. If you learn to hit a certain way in boxing or to jump a certain way in wushu, your brain will immediately default to them as an answer. I don’t want you to rely on the same answers every other person does. I want you to make up your own. If you learn how to approach a fight from an unexpected angle, you will become the weapon your opponent can’t predict.

“Again I will give you two choices,” Conner says, and watches me. “Only this time you will not have the simple luxury of choosing your own seat.”

“You know, it’s weird,” I say, stalling for time. “You tell me I’m a weak opponent, and yet you’ve failed three times to kill me. And yes, I figured out you were behind all of those attacks before you got me in this chair. So if I’m bad, you must really suck.”

Conner’s lip curls and he slaps me across the face. My head whips to the side and my ears ring, but I manage not to make a sound or show him that he’s hurting me. My mouth fills with blood and I spit it toward him.

“We have lots of time, November,” Conner says with a flash of annoyance. “How painful you make this is entirely up to you.”

Conner steps behind his desk and presses on a panel. Just like Aarya said, a door behind him swings open. He watches me as Felix limps into the room, dragging Ash.

My hands grip the chair arms so hard my fingernails gouge the wood.

Ash’s hands are tied behind his back and his ankles are bound. He’s bloodied and covered with scrapes and bruises, but he’s breathing. Felix dumps him on the stone floor about ten feet away from me.