I tilt my head at Raith, smiling despite all the tension still twisted up inside me from the last half hour. "Are you asking if I've slept with Bastian? Because if you're going to ask me that, I'm going to ask how many dozens of girls you've been with since we arrived here."

"None," he says simply.

The simple admission takes my breath away. I’d assumed…

"You haven't been with anyone here? You really expect me to believe that?"

"You can believe what you want. Have you slept with him?"

"No. And nobody else," I add after a moment.

"Good," Raith says.

That draws a chuckle from me. "Good? Why is that good, Raith?"

"It's just good." He stands suddenly. "Come on. I'm walking you back to your room."

"You are?"

"I just had to rush to a random classroom, burn down a door, and nearly fight a small-scale battle to stop Malakai and Serena from murdering you after learning two fires I thought I could trust had turned on me. So, yes, I'm walking you to your fucking room."

I try to ignore the swirl of pleasant, but confusing emotions his words trigger and the way my heart flutters wildly in my chest. "Okay," I say.

We walk in silence for a few moments before I blurt a question that has been on my mind for weeks. "Were you born in Red Kingdom?"

Raith pauses in the shadows of a corridor. It's several seconds before he answers. "Yes."

My throat goes dry, pulse quickening. The admission would be enough to get him thrown behind bars or worse. I know that much. Despite my pounding heart, I push for more. "Are you here to... hurt Empire somehow?"

"No."

I swallow hard. "Then why?"

His eyes are dark as he stares at nothing, memories seeming to swirl just behind his vision. "The less you know, the safer you are. But I can at least say I'm not… here to hurt Empire. My loyalty isn't to Red Kingdom, either."

"Then why would it be dangerous for me to know more? I don't understand."

There's another long pause, as if it goes against everything in his nature to answer my question.

"Because I'm supposed to be dead. Only a handful of people know I'm not, and if they found out I was alive. Hells, if they knew I was here? They'd burn this whole fucking place down if they could. Anybody and everybody I cared about would be ash, too. So I can't tell you more. I can't... I can't care about you, because then it would be my fault if they found me. It would be my fault that they'd come after you. Hurt you because of me. And I won't have that."