“When we brought you here last night, your eyes were bloodshot,” she said. “You seemed severely dehydrated, and when I spoke to Osan, he mentioned that you were feverish and weak before the attack. You told him it was heatstroke.” She sat on the edge of the cabinet. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

I shook my head.

She sighed. “You started bleeding while you were unconscious.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You have terrible timing, Raughn. Not that you could have known.” She finally filled her own tumbler. Drank. “Kamillian Vidar helped you get hold of the remedy, didn’t she? No one would ever sell it directly to a Sister.”

“There was no remedy,” I snapped, my voice too loud. “Leave Millie alone.”

Asan nodded to herself. She drank again.

“You’re probably aware that I don’t have a daughter.” She set down her tumbler. “That’s always been a blot on my reputation. The old guard love it—my barrenness as a sign that I’ve offended the Eater. You must have heard that?”

I gripped the tumbler tightly within my fist and said nothing. Asan could play whatever games she liked; I wasn’t going to betray Millie. She seemed to read that from my face; she smiled slightly and shrugged.

“You have,” she said. “Sisters talk; it doesn’t bother me. But what you might not know is that I did have a son.”

I tensed.

“Very briefly, of course,” said Asan. “I never even got to hold him.”

“I—”

“And after that experience, I vowed never again,” she continued. “So I took steps to make sure of it. At first, only the emergency solutions. Then a more permanent one.”

I looked down, shaken. “You should not be telling me this.”

“You’re supposed to be dead, Raughn. Who are you going to share my secrets with?” She looked aside. “Listen, we never need to talk about what you did. That’s absolutely fine. But if you should want to, I might just be the only Sister who understands. No judgement, no repercussions.”

I turned the tumbler around in my hands.

“Does Rhyanon know?” I asked.

“She does.”

I should not say anything. I had promised Millie. But there was a hard ache in my throat, and all my feelings were pressed up so suffocatingly tight, that I could not quite help myself.

“Was it the right choice?” I asked. “If you could go back, would you have changed your mind?”

“Never.”

I raised my eyes. Asan met my gaze evenly.

“I can only speak for myself,” she said, “but if I think about what I lost and what I gained? It was right for me.”

She wore such a serious expression and spoke so directly that I could not doubt her. I lowered my head again.

“I see,” I said.

She gave me time to think, letting the silence stretch. Imagining Asan as an Acolyte, as someone who had faced the same fears and made the same choices, brought me an odd kind of relief. She might have been far stronger than I was, but perhaps strength could be learned. Perhaps I could be that sure of myself one day.