The words weren’t her father’s or her mother’s or anyone else’s. They weren’t from a memory; they were from Kiva to herself. Her one and only rule at Zalindov was to not make any friends, because she would almost always lose them. With Jaren . . . she wasn’t sure if it was friendship he was asking for or more than that, but either way, it was a line she could not—and would not—cross. No matter how her heart was beating, no matter how he was looking at her right now, waiting for her response, she couldn’t make any exceptions.

“I—”

I’m sorry, I can’t was what she’d been about to say, the words already forming on her lips. But before she could utter them, Tipp bounced back into the infirmary, followed closely by Naari, and Kiva lurched away from Jaren, dragging trembling fingers through her hair as she walked on wobbly legs toward the workbench.

She didn’t dare look back at Jaren, not as Tipp asked for his help reconstructing the rat pen, not as Jaren quietly agreed and asked what supplies they had to work with. Kiva’s mind was racing, racing, racing, until she felt a feather-light touch on her hand and jumped, spinning to find that Naari had stepped up silently beside her.

“You all right?” the guard mouthed, as if aware that Kiva didn’t want any attention drawn to her right now.

Kiva was about to nod, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to Naari after having spent all day with her. She instead gave an honest, quick shake of her head and held her breath, waiting to see what the guard would do. But Naari only looked between her and Jaren, then turned back with a small, compassionate smile before mouthing, “You will be.”

And Kiva believed her—mostly because she decided that, for her own peace of mind, she would act like her conversation with Jaren had never happened.

Chapter Eighteen

Kiva had intended to head back outside the prison with Naari the next morning to collect samples from the farms, but not only was the guard absent from the infirmary, something else more urgent took Kiva’s attention.

Tilda stopped breathing.

It was pure luck that Tipp happened to be walking past her bed when she started convulsing, pure luck that Kiva was checking on the quarantined patients and close enough to come running when the boy screamed for her, pure luck that she was able to resuscitate Tilda using chest compressions.