I sit up, grabbing the sock ball as I swing my legs off the bed and drop to the floor. Kai’s lying on her back, fingers laced behind her head. I toss the sock ball at her and she glares at me.

Arms braced on my bunk, I lean over her, casting a shadow over her bed. “You seriously think Lyon’s going to let you teach?”

“Why not? He let Nereida do it.”

“Who’s Nereida?”

“My Handler,” she says with a frown. “She’s teaching Greek. And English as a Second Language. Professor Lyon says she’s happy.”

I repress a twinge of something that might be guilt. In all the shock of awakening and the truths I learned during my meeting with Lyon, I never asked him about my Handler. We were never close, and truthfully, I don’t give a shit what he decided to do with his life, assuming Lyon let him keep it. “Lyon told you that?” Her eyes narrow on me as I mutter, “Of course he did.” I lean closer, blocking the light from reaching her bunk. “You seriously think, after what you did to Jack, that Lyon is going to let you mold impressionable young minds? That in a million years he’d ever stick a bow in your hand and cut you loose?”

She pitches the sock ball back at me. I catch it a second before it hits my face. She rolls sideways away from me as I chuckle to myself.

“Face it,” I say, tossing the ball gently at the small of her back. “If you give up your magic, you’re going to be stuck scrubbing floors. Maybe you’ll serve the old man’s Guards in the mess hall if you’re lucky.”

Her fists tighten around the edge of her pillow. “Since keeping our magic isn’t exactly an option, what are you going to do? Offer yourself up for Termination? That sounds like a stellar plan.”

“Better than groveling.”

She whirls upright, spinning to face me. “It’s not groveling. It’s a second chance.”

I choke out a laugh. “At what?”

“I don’t know! A new life. We can start over.”

“Fool yourself all you want, Sampson. This second chance he’s offering you isn’t an opportunity. It’s a punishment.”

She folds her arms over her chest. “You don’t know what you’re—”

“Get up!” We both jolt upright as a fist bangs on the cell door and the locks begin to open.

Four days have passed. I only know by the number of times the lights in our cell have switched off after the guards make their final rounds, and how many times they’ve flickered on again after the long nights I’ve spent staring at the ceiling.

Kai’s eyes are wide in her bunk. “What do you think they want?” she whispers.

“I don’t know.”