I think he was flirting with me.

I don’t even remember deciding to hit him.

“Come on!” Taryn jerks my arm, and all three of us run. Someone shouts.

I look over my shoulder. One of the boy’s friends has given chase. “Bitch!” he shouts. “Crazy bitch! Milo is bleeding!”

Vivi whispers a few words and makes a motion behind us. As she does, the crabgrass begins to grow, pushing gaps in the asphalt wider. The boy comes to a halt as something rushes by him, a look of confusion on his face. Pixie-led, they call it. He wanders through a row of cars as though he has no idea where he’s going. Unless he turns his clothes inside out, which I am fairly confident he doesn’t know to do, he’ll never find us.

We stop near the edge of the lot, and Vivi immediately begins to giggle. “Madoc would be so proud—his little girl, remembering all her training,” she says. “Staving off the terrifying possibility of romance.”

I am too stunned to say anything. Hitting him was the most honest thing I’ve done in a long time. I feel better than great. I feel nothing, a glorious emptiness.

“See,” I tell Vivi. “I can’t go back to the world. Look what I would do to it.”

To that, she has no response.

I think about what I did all the way home and then, again, at school. A lecturer from a Court near the coast explains how things wither and die. Cardan gives me a significant look as she explains decomposition, rot. But what I am thinking about is the stillness I felt when I hit that boy. That and the Summer Tournament tomorrow.

I dreamed of my triumph there. None of Cardan’s threats would have kept me from wearing the gold braid and fighting as hard as I could. Now, though, his threats are the only reason I have to fight—the sheer perverse glory of not backing down.

When we break to eat, Taryn and I climb up a tree to eat cheese and oatcakes slathered with chokecherry jelly. Fand calls up to me, wanting to know why I didn’t attend the rehearsal for the mock war.

“I forgot,” I call back to her, which is not particularly believable, but I don’t care.

“But you’re going to fight tomorrow?” she asks. If I pull out, Fand will have to rearrange teams.

Taryn gives me a hopeful look, as though I may come to my senses.

“I’ll be there,” I say. My pride compels me.

Lessons are almost over when I notice Taryn, standing beside Cardan, near a circle of thorn trees, weeping. I must not have been paying attention, must have gotten too involved in packing up our books and things. I didn’t even see Cardan take my sister aside. I know she would have gone, though, no matter the excuse. She still believes that if we do what they want, they’ll get bored and leave us alone. Maybe she’s right, but I don’t care.

Tears spill over her cheeks.

There is such a deep well of rage inside me.

You’re no killer.

I leave my books and cross the grass toward them. Cardan half-turns, and I shove him so hard that his back hits one of the trees. His eyes go wide.

“I don’t know what you said to her, but don’t you ever go near my sister again,” I tell him, my hand still on the front of his velvet doublet. “You gave her your word.”

I can feel the eyes of all the other students on me. Everyone’s breath is drawn.

For a moment, Cardan just stares at me with stupid, crow-black eyes. Then one corner of his mouth curls. “Oh,” he says. “You’re going to regret doing that.”

I don’t think he realizes just how angry I am or how good it feels, for once, to give up on regrets.

Taryn won’t tell me what Prince Cardan said to her. She insists that it had nothing to do with me, that he wasn’t actually breaking his promise not to hold her accountable for my bad behavior, that I should forget about her and worry about myself.

“Jude, give it up.” She sits in front of the fire in her bedroom, drinking a cup of nettle tea from a clay mug shaped like a snake, its tail coiling to make the handle. She has on her dressing gown, scarlet to match the flames in the grate. Sometimes when I look at her, it seems impossible that her face is also mine. She looks soft, pretty, like a girl in a painting. Like a girl who fits inside her own skin.

“Just tell me what he said,” I press.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Taryn says. “I know what I’m doing.”

“And what’s that?” I ask her, my eyebrows lifting, but she only sighs.

We’ve gone three rounds like this already. I keep thinking of the lazy blink of Cardan’s lashes over his coal-bright eyes. He looked gleeful, gloating, as though my fist tightening on his shirt was exactly what he would have wished. As though, if I struck him, it would be because he had made me do it.

“I can annoy you in the hills and also the dales,” I say, poking her in the arm. “I will chase you from crag to crag across all three islands until you tell me something.”

“I think we could both bear it better if no one else had to see,” she says, then takes a long pull of her tea.

“What?” I am surprised into not knowing what to say in return. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think I could stand being teased and being made to cry if you didn’t know about it.” She gives me a steady look, as though evaluating how much truth I can handle. “I can’t just pretend my day was fine with you as a witness to what really happened. Sometimes it makes me not like you.”

“That’s not fair!” I exclaim.

She shrugs. “I know. That’s why I’m telling you. But what Cardan said to me doesn’t matter, and I want to pretend it didn’t happen, so I need you to pretend along with me. No reminders, no questions, no cautions.”

Stung, I stand and walk to her fireplace mantel, leaning my head against the carved stone. I can’t count the number of times she’s told me that messing with Cardan and his friends is stupid. And yet, given what she’s saying now, whatever made her cry this afternoon has nothing to do with me. Which means she’s gotten into some kind of trouble all on her own.

Taryn might have a lot of advice to give; I am not sure she’s taking all of it.

“So what do you want me to do?” I ask.

“I want you to fix things with him,” she says. “Prince Cardan’s got all the power. There’s no winning against him. No matter how brave or clever or even cruel you are, Jude. End this, before you get really hurt.”

I look at her uncomprehendingly. Avoiding Cardan’s wrath now seems impossible. That ship has sailed—and burned up in the harbor. “I can’t,” I tell her.

“You heard what Prince Cardan said by the river—he just wants you to give up. It’s a blow to his pride, and it hurts his status, you acting like you’re not afraid of him.” She takes my arm at the wrist, pulling me close. I can smell the sharp scent of herbs on her breath. “Tell him that he’s won and you’ve lost. They’re just words. You don’t have to mean them.”

I shake my head.

“Don’t fight him tomorrow,” she continues.

“I’m not withdrawing from the tournament,” I tell her.

“Even if it wins you nothing but more woe?” she asks.