She moved softly, gently, trying to worm her way off the bed without waking Malachi. As careful as she was, he sighed, shifted, his arms tightening around her. She knew the exact moment he woke. His breath hitched, stopped, his body stiffened. One hand was splayed over the bare skin of her arm. She disentangled herself, happy he couldn’t see her flushed cheeks in the dark.

“We need to go,” she said softly, slipping her feet into her uncomfortable boots. She hissed when one of her blisters tore.

“It’s still dark. Come back to bed,” Malachi murmured, the soft, sleepy growl of his voice caressing her. “The carriage won’t be here for hours.”

“We’re not waiting for the carriage,” she said, tossing him his boots. “We’re going to steal a horse.”

They were flying.

Nomi wound her hands into the coarse mane that whipped at her face. Malachi’s chest pressed into her back, and his arms framed her, his hands clutching the reins. So high above the ground, she still felt safe. Even though the morning was cool, the proximity of his body put heat in her cheeks and her fingertips.

The dark and the wind rushed past them. The soldier’s horse they’d stolen (“It’s not really stealing,” she’d pointed out as they snuck down the back stairs. “You’re the rightful Heir, so this horse, these soldiers, are yours”) was big and fast. They galloped to meet the dawn like racers in the Premio Belaria, and Nomi loved every moment. She’d always wondered what riding a horse would feel like. She’d never imagined it would be this dangerous, this exhilarating.

They thundered into the outskirts of Lanos City on the tail end of daybreak. Malachi pulled the horse to a walk and straightened. Nomi slumped back against him, her cheeks wind-chapped and her body a whirl of electrified nerve endings.

“Where to?” Malachi asked in her ear.

The thrill of the ride wore off quickly, her fears for Renzo swarming back. She pointed to the bank of coal-dark smoke lingering against the far silhouette of the mountains. “Factory Row.”

Her stomach lurched. Nostalgia slammed into her with each breath of Lanos’s dirty air. She’d been gone a few months. It felt like years. Like lifetimes. Nomi was a new person, but the city hadn’t changed.

The closer they got to her family’s small, dark apartment on Factory Row, the faster Nomi’s heart beat. She was so scared for Renzo, so afraid she wouldn’t be able to find him. But she was about to see her parents. Her mother, who, for all her harsh advice, gave the softest, most comforting hugs. And her father, who had told her gruffly, in a private moment as she boarded the train to Bellaqua, that he would miss her.