“Yes. I mean, I have other scars from weapons training with my father. But the big scar, the one you noticed, is from Roshar’s pet tiger. It’s mostly tame. Roshar brought it to a state function when I was twelve…” She drifted off, maybe because of the fresh anger that must have been plain on my face. I hated to hear the hope in her voice, as if she believed that she could distract me from her deceit by telling me a tale about a tiger among royalty, in a country I had never seen.

“Nirrim, please look at me.”

I shook my head, my eyes brimming.

“Ask me what I thought when I first met you,” she said. “Ask me how I felt when I first saw your face. Ask me how it is to stand in front of you and know how angry you are, how much I deserve it, how awful it is to have hurt you when I have only ever wanted your happiness.”

I couldn’t help it. I looked up. Her face was pale, stricken.

“You have my heart,” she said. “I never knew I could feel for anyone what I feel for you.”

She looked lonely. It hurt me to see her unsmiling mouth, how her body had lost its easy confidence. Sid hated to be serious but was so serious now, and so sad. My anger slipped away. I said, “I believe you.”

The corner of her mouth lifted into a smile, but her eyes were still hesitant. She waited, but I couldn’t say to her what she had said to me, even as I loved her bravery for saying it. I loved the freckle beneath her eye, the throat I still wanted to press my face against, how she loved her parents even when they failed her. How gently she sought my thoughts. How hard she held me when I asked her to. Her sly glances. Her laugh. I was a coward for saying none of this, but my throat closed over. My anger was gone, but I wished it weren’t. Anger would armor me against the answer to the question I had to ask. “Will Roshar force you to return home?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. But her face was unhappy.

“Are you going to do it anyway?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“But”—I desperately cast about for the words that would make her stay—“we had a plan. You said a month.”

“I can’t.”

“You promised. You swore on your life.”

“I must ask you to release me from that promise.”

“You said you wanted to bring the secret of magic back to your parents.”

“That’s not important now.”

“You always change your mind,” I accused. “You never want anything for long.”