“Sophie?”

She looked up at Rafal, who was staring at her. “Is there a reason you’re hiding your hand?” he asked.

Sophie gaped like a toad. “Mmm?”

“You keep adjusting your position so that your hand stays covered.”

Sophie cleared her throat and straightened against the bedpost. “Honestly darling, I know you come from the Bluebeard school of love, but I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about. While I have your attention, though, perhaps now’s a good time to discuss campus business? Last year I found the choice of school play deeply underwhelming, to say the least. Given my light teaching load, I’m happy to take up the burden myself: namely, a grand one-woman show, with performances each night at 7:30 in the Supper Hall and an additional matinee on Sundays, followed by coffee and canapés. La Reine Sophie, we’ll call it, an appropriate name, don’t you think, for a sumptuous, 3-hour pageant of—”

“Let me see your hand,” Rafal said, glowering.

“W-w-what?” Sophie croaked.

The young School Master slunk towards the bed. “You heard me.”

“Excuse me. You might be Master of this school, but you are not Master of my limbs,” Sophie puffed lamely, left hand sandwiched under her buttocks.

But Rafal was six feet away, suspicion glowing in his eyes.

Sophie’s heart throttled against her sternum. “Really, darling, you’re being utterly ridiculous—”

He was two feet away now.

“Rafal, please!”

He seized her arm, yanking it out from under her. In a flash, Sophie lanced her thumbnail hard into her ring finger, gashing the skin—

Rafal held up her hand and blood streamed down it, obscuring Tedros’ name. His eyes flared. “You’re hurt!”

“This is precisely why I hid it. Knew you’d overreact like you always do,” Sophie pooh-poohed, shoving her bloodied hand in her pocket and rushing past him. “Just a lingering blister that keeps reopening . . . a stupid little accident in the menagerie. Now about that show, darling. It begins with a saucy little number called ‘Thunder Down Tundra,’ so I’ll need glaciers, nubile danseurs, and a male lion, preferably tamed—”

“Wait. You touched Agatha and Tedros’ kiss?” Rafal stalked towards her. “Manley made that scene poisonous, specifically to catch anyone still loyal to Good. No Never would get within ten feet of an Evers’ kiss. Why would you touch it—”

“Oh heavens to Betsy, look at the time! Can you fly me down to my classroom, dear?” Sophie snatched her teacher’s dress off a hook and bustled towards the window, back turned. “You know how Lady Lesso is about tardiness. Wouldn’t want her to think you’re more irresponsible than she already does.”

This time Sophie felt very different in Rafal’s arms as he flew her over the bay.

Instead of safe, she felt scared; instead of loved, she felt caged. With her right hand glued inside her pocket and the left clinging to him for dear life, she ground her teeth and clamped every muscle, as if riding a wild beast she’d tried to tame and lost control over. And yet, despite the roller coaster in her stomach, she realized Rafal was flying glacially slow, zigzagging off path. She glanced back and saw his leery blue gaze locked on her instead of the sky, clearly thinking about her behavior in the tower.