He hadn’t hurt me yet, but he would. To own me he would have to subjugate me, torture me, make me obey by any means necessary. If I killed him now, I might save myself. My hand reached for a pillow. I could do it, I could suffocate him. Yes, come on, kill him. I flexed my fingers, grasped the cotton. Kill him!

I couldn’t. He’d wake up. He’d wake up and break my neck. Even if he didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to escape. The guards outside would string me up for murder.

I had to save him.

Something told me not to touch the sheets. I didn’t trust that liquid. The glow said radioactive, and I couldn’t forget Scion’s warnings of contamination. I went to the drawer and pulled on a pair of his gloves. They were massive, made for Rephaite hands. My fingers lacked dexterity. I ripped up one of the cleaner sheets. Flimsy things, useless for warmth. Once I had a few long strips, I took them to the bathroom and soaked them in hot water. This might not work, but it might just buy him a few hours to wake up and seek treatment from the other Rephaim. If he was lucky.

Back in the chamber, I steeled my nerves. Warden looked and felt like death. The cold seeped through the gloves. His skin had a gray tinge. I wrung out the sheet and set to work on the wound. At first I was cautious, but he didn’t stir. He wasn’t going to wake.

Outside, through the windows, the play of sunlight began to change. I squeezed water on the wound, cleaned away the blood, coaxed grit from the mangled flesh. After what seemed like hours, I’d finally made a dent in the mess. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the soft surge in his throat. I used another sheet to pad the wound, secured the makeshift wadding with the sash of my tunic, then pulled the bedding over his arm. It was up to him to survive now.

I woke a few hours later.

I could tell from the silence that the room was unoccupied. The bed was made. The sheets had been replaced. The drapes were tied with embroidered sashes, waxing the walls in the light of the moon.

Warden was gone.

The windows dripped with condensation. I went to sit by the fire. I couldn’t have imagined the whole encounter; not unless I was still having flux flashes—but I had taken the antidote. My blood was clean. So that meant Warden, for whatever reason, had left again.

There was a fresh uniform laid out on the bed, along with a second note. Written in the same bold hand, it simply read:

Tomorrow.

So he hadn’t passed away in his sleep. And my training was delayed for yet another day.

The gloves were gone. He must have taken them. I went to the bathroom and scrubbed my hands with hot water. I changed into my uniform, popped the three pills from their packets, and washed them down the sink. I would find out more today. I didn’t care what Liss said—we couldn’t just accept this. I didn’t care if the Rephs had been here for two hundred years or two million: I would not let them abuse my clairvoyance. I wasn’t their soldier, and she wasn’t their lunch.