I sit on my bed and contemplate what to do now. I probably won't get to keep Lenox, although he may have a say in that. I need to talk to Jonah, but he's still with the council. I'm surprised they haven't arrested me yet.

Albína comes in carrying a large bag that she throws on the bed next to me. Then without a word, she hugs me. "I've grown quite fond of you," she says. "I've been told to tell you that Lenox and Stryder are yours and you may take them with you. I've been asked to assist you with packing and to make sure you have everything you need."

I don't know why it hurts my feelings when they make no attempt to keep me. They're giving me what I want and they don't even want to try to convince me to stay. I've solved the problem for them. They know I'm not a Knight.

"The council has asked me to ask you to wait until Sir Jonah arrives."

I nod. Jonah's going to take me back to New York. I doubt I get to keep the Orb. Will Auntie let me stay with her if I don't have the Orb, or if I'm not the Lost Knight? No, she wouldn't. My heart sinks. I guess I'm going to find out if Jonah meant it when he said he would hide me.

"When will he be here?" I ask with a surprisingly strong voice.

She pauses to think about her answer; she's terrible with time. "After you eat your second meal tomorrow," she says with a smile.

I smile back because she's proud of herself for figuring it out. "I've grown fond of you, too."

"Then don't go!" she blurts out. She puts her hands up like she's going to push me away from her and shakes her head. "No. I promised I wouldn't say anything. Sir Jonah asked that he be the one to speak with you." She looks at me with pleading eyes. Then she runs out of the room.

Relief makes my entire body relax and I flop on the bed. They are going to try to talk me into staying and they're going to use their best weapon. I'm still a failure as a Knight, but it's nice to know they'd like me to continue to try.

The next day I realize I was wrong. They're not using their best weapon, they're using everything they've got.

I swing my door open and let both Jonah and Dathid enter. Jonah gives me the hug I've been needing. I'm so happy he's not mad. I'm shocked when Dathid smiles and hugs me too.

When he lets me go he says, "I want to thank you for dragging me back here." He's being sarcastic, but he's not mad. In fact, this is the happiest I've ever seen him. He seems to find the entire thing funny.

I flop on the couch and lean against Jonah while Dathid sits across from us on the opposite couch. "How much trouble am I in?" I ask.

Jonah shakes his head. "None. They've been told your training schedule is too rigorous. They chose to ignore it. Are you truly interested in leaving?"

"Yes. I can't do this. I never thought I could. But I tried. And now I know I can't. Are you mad?"

"No. I'm happy that you tried."

"I don't understand why you're quitting," Dathid says.

"Because I'm terrible at it. Seriously bad. I'm not a Knight. I've told Jonah this before. I think he grabbed the wrong Agatha."

"You've been here..." Dathid pauses and stares off into space, "like, eight weeks." He smiles. He's distractingly handsome when he does that. "I'm getting good at time. Two months is hardly enough training to become a Knight. I started when I was...six? Yeah, six years old." He's smiling when he says it. I hope he's smiling because he figured out he was six and not because a six-year-old had to learn how to use a sword.

"I actually started before then, but that was more play. Six years old is when actual training started." He looks off in the distance. "I'm pretty sure ten was the first battle. I mean, other than defending against raids. I remember those from very early. Ten was when I was in battle. It was a couple of years after that when I had my first kill."

I hope my horror isn't showing on my face. He's talking about this as if we're discussing dinner. A ten-year-old Dathid fought in a battle. He killed someone by the time he was twelve. That's younger than me.

"My point is that it was many years of intense training, starting at a young age before I was a Raidir—that's what we call Knights. I'll just say Knight, to make it easier."

"You are also a Templar, Dathid, so you could say Knight," Jonah says.

"Yeah, but up until Agatha showed up it was just a formal function I had to do because my father is king."

Sometimes Dathid and Jonah tie themselves in conversational knots that neither can leave alone until they've settled whatever quandary they found themselves in. It takes fifteen minutes for them to come full circle and decide that since Dathid is the Crown Prince of Cromsmead he should use the term Knight instead of Raidir.

With that decided, they've forgotten where they left me so they both look helplessly at me to get them back on track. I laugh. "So when were you knighted? Or raidir-ed? The soldier one, not the Templar one."

Dathid rubs his chin. "I was knighted...hang on, let's see if I can do this backward. Five years ago. That might be wrong."

"That's not helpful because I don't know how old you are now."

"How old am I, Jonah?" he asks.

Jonah stares at him. "I'd say you're in your early twenties. Maybe twenty-one, two."

"So you were knighted at sixteen," I say. "It took you ten years." Then I realize what I'm saying and my heart races. My anxiety is so high I practically yell. "They want me to train like this for ten years?"

Jonah shakes his head. "No, they're trying to cram ten years of training into one year. Plus learning wizardry. And then you also need to know Ashra's history and all the many creatures that inhabit it."

"No wonder you cracked," Dathid says.

I sneer at him and then turn toward Jonah before he can retaliate. "So are you here to talk me into staying?"

"No," Jonah says.

"I am," Dathid says at the same time.

"You're doing a terrible job." I laugh because he laughs first.

"Hey! I'd like to argue that I opened with empathy. I thought that was good. I couldn't live with these elves. I'm surprised you made it as long as you did."

This is a different Dathid than the one who left here two months ago. He's kind of funny. He also smiles more and there's less tension in his body. I don't know what to make of it. I want to ask him why he's so different, but I don't know-how without being rude.

I nod at him. "Okay, good start."

"Thanks," he says.

"What's next?"

They stand and walk to the door. "Jonah needs to report to the council that you're not going to run off or hang yourself."

I nod. "Yeah, you can say that. I'm not the hanging type."

"Well, if you don't do it before dinner we'll take you out to eat."

I smile at Dathid and shove him into the hallway.