Theo’s expression is heavy with anguish. “If Martin is aware, it still doesn’t matter. The Residents would be expecting me to come and save him. I’d be walking into a trap.”

“But they think I’m a Resident. If I could get to him—”

“I can’t put the Colony in danger again,” Theo cuts in, and I realize the bags under his eyes reveal the shame he’s been carrying.

I drop my shoulders. “So that’s it? We don’t even try?”

Theo grimaces, retrieving one of his knives before running his finger over the flat surface. The blade catches the light. “Did you really see a servant cry?”

I nod. “I don’t think they’re as gone as Annika thinks they are.”

He flattens his mouth, brow furrowed. “The Colony would never approve of a rescue mission for one human.”

I hesitate, rolling my thoughts through my mind like clay. “Maybe—maybe the Colony doesn’t have to know.”

Theo tenses. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, when his eyes dart toward the doorway. And like a curtain being drawn, darkness takes over his face.

It happens quickly. Theo moves toward me like a shadow, and I feel his blade press against my throat. My body reacts instinctively, and I start to lean backward to escape his knife, when something tears itself from a nearby wall and flashes toward me, wrapping itself around my arms and torso until I’m unable to move.

I look down, constricted by rope. “What are you doing?” Theo is only a few inches away from me. “I was trying to help you!”

He blinks. Whatever emotions he’d been feeling before have dulled. “You’re trying to divide us.”

“What? No, I’m not,” I growl through gritted teeth, trapped beneath the rope.

“I told you we couldn’t trust her,” says a voice that makes my blood hotter than it already is.

I don’t need to look up to see who the voice belongs to, but I can’t stop myself. The heat in my gaze finds Gil, but where I expect to see a careful smugness, I find only fury.

“She still doesn’t understand what we’re fighting for.” Theo doesn’t look away from me. “She doesn’t see how trying to save an unaware human puts everyone in danger.”

“Of course I do,” I spit. “But helping people like the girl from the palace—people who have no one else fighting for them—it makes a difference. It matters.”

It has to. Because if Mei were here and someone had the chance to save her, I’d want them to believe she was worth the risk.

Gil walks toward us like a wolf stalking its prey. “What matters is the mission. The Colony. Our survival.”