“By the time I woke up,” Tristan finished, “the targets had escaped. Garret surrendered to our squad leader and was taken into custody, but we were unable to find the dragons again.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir.”

Fischer nodded. “Thank you, St. Anthony. Garret Xavier Sebastian,” he went on, turning to me as Tristan stepped away. His eyes and voice remained hard. “You’ve heard the charges brought against you. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

I took a quiet breath.

“I do.” I raised my head, facing the men at the table. I’d been debating whether I wanted to say anything, to tell the Order to its face that they had been mistaken all this time. This would damn me even further, but I had to try. I owed it to Ember, and all the dragons I had killed.

“This summer,” I began, as the flat stares of the table shifted to me, “I went to Crescent Beach expecting to find a dragon. I didn’t.” One of the men blinked; the rest simply continued to stare as I went on. “What I found was a girl, someone just like me in a lot of ways. But she was also her own person. There was no imitation of humanity, no artificial emotions or gestures. Everything she did was genuine. Our mission took so long because I couldn’t see any differences between Ember Hill and a civilian.”

The silence in the courtroom now took on a lethal stillness. Gabriel Martin’s face was like stone, his stare icy. I didn’t dare turn to look at Tristan, but I could feel his incredulous gaze on my back.

I swallowed the dryness in my throat. “I’m not asking for clemency,” I went on. “My actions that night were inexcusable. But I beg the court to consider my suggestion that not all dragons are the same. Ember Hill could be an anomaly among her kind, but from what I saw she wanted nothing to do with the war. If there are others like her—”

“Thank you, Sebastian.” Fischer’s voice was clipped. His chair scraped the floor as he pushed it back and stood, gazing over the room. “Court is adjourned,” he announced. “We will reconvene in an hour. Dismissed.”

* * *

Back in my cell, I sat on the hard mattress with my back against the wall and one knee drawn to my chest, waiting for the court to decide my fate. I wondered if they would consider my words. If the impassioned testimony of the former Perfect Soldier would be enough to give them pause.

“Garret.”

I looked up. Tristan’s lean, wiry form stood in front of the cell bars. His face was stony, but I looked closer and saw that his expression was conflicted, almost tormented. He glared at me, midnight-blue eyes searing a hole through my skull, before he sighed and made an angry, hopeless gesture, shaking his head.