‘What can I do? What do you need?’ I ask him.

He shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure I even know anymore. She was so mad at me. I thought I’d have time, you know, to put it right.’

‘You did, Benny.’ I place my hand on his shoulder. ‘You know you did. I saw you two. Whatever happened between you, she was moving past it. I’m sure of it.’

He scoffs. ‘I guess we’ll never know.’

My heart throbs. How many times can it get broken and keep beating? How much suffering can one person endure before a heart simply decides it can no longer keep going? I don’t have the answer, but right now I feel closer to that moment of defeat than ever before.

Kay approaches in a similar manner to the way I approached the dire wolf in Afaven Forest. ‘Rose, I’m going to head back home now,’ she says, still visibly trembling. ‘William and Hew are going to walk me.’

I nod dully, a tiny sting piercing my heart that she isn’t willing to stay for me. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Rose.’ She pauses before pressing her lips together and glancing at Jonas. ‘Think over what I said about Jonas. You could make a far worse match than a Lorathin.’

It’s hard not to laugh. I’m mourning the death of one of my closest friends, and Kay is thinking about matchmaking me.

Kay turns away, not even bothering to wish me luck with the next trial or tell me to stay alive. Maybe it’s too hard for her to think of it like that, to face how deadly this all is. Or maybe, like Holden, she also thinks I’m a cockroach who is destined to fall right back into the gutter I came from.

The ball carries on around us, with music and dancing and people skirting around our little group, but we remain in silence until Kyor returns.

‘I have permission from the High Priestess for us to leave the Rettling grounds, and I have two carriages ready. One to take us to the water,’ he says, ‘and the other full of wood to build a raft. That’s right, isn’t it?’

Benny nods.

‘Then we should leave now.’

No one speaks on the carriage ride to the sea. Llin is cradled by Caroline on one seat, with Benny next to her, while Jonas, Kyor, and I cram together on the other.

I am in shock, I realise. My limbs feel weak, detached almost, and I can’t stop trembling. Can’t stop seeing the moment of Llin’s death, her smile fixed forever. You’d think, as a healer’s daughter and then an orphan – and a slum rat – I’d be used to death, but it’s different when it’s a friend. Someone you love. Maybe not loving is the answer.

No one speaks, but at some point the air turns cool and salty as the sound of the gentle lapping of waves drifts into the carriage. I only wish the waves could wash away the memories I can’t stop from flooding through my mind.

As the carriage draws to a halt, the men and I climb out. Caroline stays with Llin, still stroking her hair, and she begins to hum softly, like she would to comfort a small child. My eyes sting and my chest is tight, but I help Kyor and Jonas carry wood from the second carriage to where Benny is lashing each board together expertly. This clearly isn’t the first funereal raft he’s built.

It gives me purpose and a much-needed distraction to do something, to help in some small way, and I move methodically, lifting one plank, then another. I don’t stop – I can’t stop – because if I do, the absence of motion will allow the thoughts to creep in, and the pain will follow.

On the occasions I do look up, I find Kyor or Jonas staring at me, concern etched across their features. But they keep their distance.

‘It’s ready,’ Benny says gently to Caroline, when the raft is finally built. ‘Let me carry her for you,’ he offers.

Caroline nods dully and he sweeps Llin’s frame up into his arms like she weighs nothing.

Wordlessly, Benny carries Llin down to the water and lays her down on the wooden raft before stepping back and allowing Caroline a few last private moments with the love of her life.

‘It’s time,’ he says a minute later, pressing his hand against the small of her back. ‘It’s time.’

Still trying to stifle her shuddering breaths, Caroline moves to one side of the raft while Benny takes his place on the other. Together, they push the raft out, wading into the soft waves of the sea, which break and foam around their calves, the green ballgown swirling around Caroline. Before they get too deep, Kyor hands them each a burning torch and then returns to my side.

I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to see Llin’s body, which only hours ago was so full of hope and laughter and life, be turned into nothing more than ash and memories. But I won’t draw my eyes away. Watching on and honouring her passage is the least Llinos deserves.

The water is halfway up their thighs when, as one, Benny and Caroline lower their torches. The flames catch slowly at first, licking around Llin’s body until they rise up, higher and higher. Before they have consumed her entirely, Benny and Caroline offer the raft one final push, and the current of the sea takes her, slowly drawing Llinos away from the shore.

Kyor’s hand slips into mine, his fingers intertwining with my own, as we stand there watching the flames float into the distance, carrying with them the most loyal friend I have ever known.

‘I didn’t know how to pronounce her name the first time we met,’ I whisper. ‘I didn’t know how to pronounce it, and now I’m never going to say it to her again.’

As we watch Benny and Caroline return to the shore, dripping with water and tears, I know that Kyor won’t bother to offer me some trite words of comfort. Like me, he has already suffered too much in his life, and he knows there is nothing he can say. But the truth is that he doesn’t need to say anything. Right now, his presence is enough.

By the time we arrive back at the High Hold, it can only be a few hours until breakfast. I don’t know where Caroline goes or where she lives when she isn’t with us or scribing in the library, but I don’t offer to go with her, knowing she needs to be alone. So I simply hug her tightly before she disappears. Looking weary beyond tiredness, heartsore, and exhausted, Benny trudges upstairs to our dorm. And Jonas doesn’t even look back as he climbs the steps to his room.

I don’t hesitate when Kyor tugs my hand. I follow him down the stairs towards the kitchens and into his bedroom. He steps inside and closes the door behind me.

As he slips off his jacket, I reach up onto my tiptoes and press my mouth to his. Yet my tongue has barely savoured a hint of his vanilla taste when he breaks away. Pulls away from me.

I frown. ‘I trust you,’ I say impatiently. ‘I trust you with my life. That’s what you needed to hear, right? Well, there you go. Now you know. I trust you and I want you.’ I move to kiss him again, but rather than reciprocating my action, he cups my cheeks and draws my face away from him.

‘I believe you,’ he replies softly, ‘but you’re forgetting the only rule of this relationship.’

Another day, another moment, and my mind would have spun at the word. Now, my mind is strangely numb. I shake my head. ‘What rule?’ I say. ‘There are no rules.’

‘Not as a distraction. That’s the one you gave me, remember? Not as a distraction.’

I open my mouth, desperate to object, to say that’s not the reason I want him, that it’s more than desire. It’s a need, a yearning, an absolute desperation.

The pain of his rejection burns through me. A pain that quickly shifts into anger.

‘You’re choosing now to be a gentleman? Seriously? When I actually need you to fuck me, that’s when you find some morals?’

A muscle twitches along his jaw. ‘I was a kid, Thorn⁠—’

‘I’m not talking about my family. I’m talking about Estel’s sister.’ Even as the words leave my lips, I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up. What am I hoping to achieve? I know that causing other people hurt does nothing to minimise my own. And yet I can’t stop myself.