Nova's POV
The conversation with Seraphine had lasted two hours.
Nova was not ready to talk about what had been said. Not yet not to Thorne, not to her brothers, not to anyone. She had come back inside at five in the morning with the specific quiet of someone who had been handed something very large and was still deciding where to put it, and she had sat in her room until the sun came up and she had thought about her mother and she had thought about debts and she had thought about what it meant to be the last of a line that had been making impossible decisions since before she was born.
Then she had gone to find Ryder.
"Teach me to fight," she'd said.
He'd looked at her for a long moment with the expression of someone who wanted to ask what had happened and had the wisdom to understand that this was not the moment.
"Training yard," he'd said. "One hour."
The sword was heavier than she expected.
