“That’s not what she wants,” Rebecca whispered, looking stricken. “She’s not looking for gratitude. She just—”

“Of course you’d stick up for her,” Han said. “Bluebloods always stick together.”

This time, Rebecca didn’t try to respond. She sat, twisting a gold ring on her forefinger, staring straight ahead, her face as pale as scribes’ paper.

As silence grew between them, guilt crept over Han. Of course she’d defend them. She’d grown up in the court, and her friends were bluebloods. She wasn’t the enemy.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Han said. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you. You may be a blueblood, but you’re not to blame for what happened.” He closed his hand over hers.

None of what he said seemed to make her feel any better.

It wasn’t her fault that his life was a disaster. He was trying to figure out a way to say that when she slammed her chair back, nearly toppling it, and stood.

“I have to go.” She snatched up her bag. “Please accept my…sincere…condolences at the loss of your family,” she said, voice hitching. “I am…so very sorry.”

She flung herself out the door as if she were being chased by demons, leaving her flowers behind. He heard her banging down the steps. Then nothing.

Han sat frozen with surprise for a moment. “Rebecca,” he shouted. “Wait!”

He scraped together his books and papers and stuffed them into his carry bag, then launched himself down the stairs.

By the time he reached the common room, Rebecca was gone.

The patrons stared at Han with greedy interest. He ran out onto Bridge Street, looking both directions, and saw her, head down, striding back toward Wien House and her dormitory.

He raced after her, dodging students and faculty who strolled the streets, enjoying the spring weather.

His long legs proved an advantage—that and the fact that Rebecca was crying flat out and probably couldn’t see where she was going. Han caught up with her and took hold of her arm.

“Rebecca, please, please, don’t run off,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said the things I did.”

She just shook her head, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as if she could make him disappear. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Leave me alone. I’m going back to my room.”

But she made no move to do so, just stood in the middle of the street, fists clenched, while the crowds parted on either side of her, staring and nudging each other.

“Come on,” he said, sliding an arm around her shoulder and guiding her back toward the bridge. He looked up at the sign that swung over the doorway. The Scholar and Hound. “Let’s go in here.”

She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no, either, so he herded her through the door and into the warmly lit interior. It was crowded, but he spotted two bleary-eyed students leaving a table in the corner. He shouldered his way through the standees and claimed it, staring down a hulking cadet in a beer-stained tunic lurching toward it.