She stares me down and then deliberately presses her finger against the half-finished device before her. Her expression dares me to pick a fight, and I could easily take her up on it. It might be a relief to get some of the uncomfortable, volatile emotions from yesterday out into the open.

But Rachel doesn’t need to deal with my grief and anger. She needs an outlet for her own. Any other Baalboden girl would want sympathy and the cushion of her Protector keeping all hardship from her. But while other girls were raised to be dependent and obedient, Rachel was taught to think and act for herself. I know exactly how to help her.

“Want to spar?”

She frowns and slowly pulls her hand away from the wires. “Spar?”

“Yes.”

She glances around as if looking for the trap. “Why?”

“Because it’s been two and a half years since you last knocked me flat on my back. I figure I’m due.” Not that I’m going to make it easy for her to beat me. She’d hate me if I did.

I smile as I walk toward her and nearly trip on a stack of haphazardly organized books.

Why don’t I ever put things away around here?

She lifts her chin. “I only spar with—”

Jared. She only spars with Jared, but she can’t make herself finish the sentence. Her lips tremble before she presses them back into an unyielding line.

“I’m sorry.” I reach a hand toward her, but she doesn’t look at it, and I let it fall. “I wish I could change things. I wish I hadn’t made you move in here when I should’ve let you stay in your home. I wish Oliver had been named your Protector, so you’d feel comfortable. And I wish Jared …”

I can’t say I wish he wasn’t dead, because I don’t think he is. The Commander doesn’t think he’s dead either. I’m hoping to be the first to prove that theory right. If I can’t finish my invention and track Jared across the Wasteland before the Commander homes in on him, I’m afraid Jared will face the kind of brutal death only our leader is capable of dispensing.

Rachel’s glare softens into something bright and fervent. “You don’t think Dad’s dead, do you?”

I shake my head.

“I knew it. I hoped I could count on you.” Her cheeks flush faintly, and she leans closer. Warmth unfurls in my chest at her faith in me. If she can learn to trust me, maybe we can start over. Rebuild our friendship and figure out how to make this impossible situation work.

She says, “I’ve been thinking of ways we can get out of Baalboden so we can find him. If there’s a sanctioned highwayman trading day, we could …”

The warmth within me turns to ice as she talks, one wild escape idea after another spilling from her mouth, a collection of dangerous pitfalls guaranteed to trap her beneath the merciless foot of the Commander. The memory of his whip falling in cruel precision across my mother’s back slaps at me with a swift shock of pain.

Jared is counting on me to protect Rachel. Oliver is too. And with the Commander already suspicious that we know Jared’s whereabouts, the risk of getting caught in an escape attempt is high.

Too high to allow her to come along.

She’ll fight me on it. Probably hate me for it. But since she already despises me, I’ve got nothing to lose by standing in her way.

“We aren’t leaving Baalboden to go looking for Jared,” I say quietly.

The sudden silence between us is fraught with tension.

“But you said you think he’s alive.” She sounds baffled and hurt, and regret is a bitter taste in my mouth, but I can’t allow her to risk everything. Jared wouldn’t want his daughter to die trying to save him.

I don’t want her to die either. She may not like me now, but I haven’t forgotten that of all the citizens in Baalboden, only Oliver, Jared, and Rachel ever bothered to look at me like I was worth something.

“Logan?”

I make myself meet her eyes. Make myself memorize the way they look when they aren’t filled with animosity or anger. Then I shove my regret into a corner and focus on the more important task: Keep Rachel safe until I can stash her with Oliver and go out into the Wasteland to find Jared myself. I don’t know what Jared could’ve done to gain the Commander’s merciless animosity, but he’s become family to me. I can’t stand back and do nothing.

“I do think he’s alive,” I say. “But we aren’t going out looking for him. It’s a suicide mission, one he’d never allow you to—”

“Don’t tell me what Dad would allow me to do!”

“Rachel …”

Her face is dead white, her eyes a blaze of misery and fury. “So, you’re content to just sit here in your little house, doing whatever it is you do all day, while somewhere out there Dad needs our help?”

No, I want to tell her. I’m about ten days out from finishing an invention I made specifically because I couldn’t stand to sit here doing nothing while somewhere out there Jared is missing. But if I tell her that, it’s tantamount to giving her permission to come along. And I’m not willing to do that.

I clench my jaw and say, “We aren’t going.”

Her lip curls, a scornful expression that seems to say I’ve just lived up to her lowest estimation of me, and she steps back. Her disappointment hurts, but I meet her gaze without flinching.

“I’m sorry, Rachel.”

She turns and walks out of the house.