I’d seen it the second I came in. I’d assumed the plate was for him, but then I remembered what he lived on. Of course the meal wasn’t for him.

When I didn’t move, Warden did. He set the plate across my lap, along with heavy silver cutlery. I looked down at the meal. The sight made my head spin and my throat ache. Soft-boiled eggs, split open to squeeze out a hot gold yolk. A glass dish of pearled barley, tossed with pine nuts and fat black beans that shone like drops of onyx. A skinned pear, soaked in brandy. A sprig of plump red grapes. Whole-grain bread with butter.

“Take it.”

I clenched my fists.

“You have to eat, Paige.”

I wanted so much to defy him, to throw the plate right back at him, but my head was light and my mouth was furred with thirst and all I wanted was to eat the damned food. I picked up the spoon and took a mouthful of the barley. The beans were warm, the nuts brittle and sweet. Relief flooded my body, and the pain in my abdomen began to subside.

Warden returned to his seat. He watched in silence as I picked my way through the meal. I felt the weight of his gaze, piercing and alight. When I was finished, I put the plate on the floor. The afterburn of brandy lingered on my tongue.

“Thank you,” I said.

I didn’t want to say it, but I had to say something. His fingers tapped the arm of his chair.

“I wish to continue your training tomorrow night,” he said. “Do you have any objections?”

“I have no choice.”

“What if you did?”

“I don’t,” I said, “so it doesn’t matter.”

“I am speaking hypothetically. But if you had a choice, if you could control your own fate—would you continue your training with me, or take your next test cold?”

My lips were forming a harsh answer when I bit down on my tongue, stopping it. “I don’t know,” I said.

Warden stoked the fire. “It must be a dilemma. Your morals say ‘no,’ but your survival instinct says ‘yes.’”

“I already know how to fight. I’m stronger than I look.”