Ryan takes me to a cemetery.

"Did you already pick out my plot?"

He glowers at me as he grabs the padlock on the gate. "They don't usually lock this. Can you break it?"

I roll my eyes. "We're not breaking anything. C'mon, climb over the fence."

He looks up at the top of the fence high above us. His Adam's apple bobs as he gulps. "That's... not happening."

"Oh, I didn't realize you were a wimp. C'mon." I drag his arms over my shoulder.

"What are you doing!?" he yelps.

"Don't be a baby. I won't drop you. Hunter powers and all that. Just close your eyes and we'll be over before you know it."

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this."

"Well, now I'm curious why we're here. Eyes closed, bud."

His legs coil around my waist as I grip onto the fence bars.

This fence isn't half as hard to get over as the ones we had to scale in training on the island. Not even a third of the height either. My feet are hitting grass on the other side before Ryan can even start crying.

He clears his throat when I set him down and brushes imaginary dust off himself. "That wasn't too bad," he admits.

I ruffle his hair and he smacks my hand away.

"It's this way," he says and guides me down a few aisles.

My throat is already closing before we make it to the headstone.

It's covered in leaves and there's no dates on it yet, just a name. Kala Pati.

Ryan brushes the leaves away and kneels in front of the dirt patch.

"Ryan," I whisper, because I don't know why I'm here. This feels too intimate for me to be witnessing.

But Ryan pats the ground next to him, so I join him in a kneel. His eyes never leave the name on the headstone. "I lied to you," he admits again. "When I said Singh threatened to strip me of my title. She did threaten that if I didn't stop looking into Kala's death. But I couldn't stop looking. Even with the threat of losing everything, I had to know. So, I kept looking. She followed through."

I look down. "You're only my Protector because you have no title."

"I'm not your Protector," he whispers. "I'm not a Protector at all. I'm nothing anymore. She did ask me to watch you, Mason." His eyes find mine, shattered and reflecting the light of the moon behind me. "But I won't. I can't. Kala would be ashamed of me if they could see me now." A tear slips down his cheek and he looks back, probably hoping I didn't see it. "The reason they're gone is because they knew Singh couldn't be trusted. They wanted to change things and Singh wouldn't let them. She killed them for it."

Before I can stop myself, I grab Ryan's shoulder and .

"Betraying you for Singh isn't what I want. I don't want to work for Singh at all. I thought I was doing the right thing for my family, but I can't do this anymore, Mason. I want to save my family, but I can't destroy the only piece of Kala I have left."

"So, don't," I say.

He shakes his head. "You say that like it's easy."

"It is. You're going to report to Singh like she wants."

His head snaps up and he stares at me, tears still in his eyes. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Singh wants to know what I'm up to, so you're going to tell her exactly what I'm up to."

"Mason, I can't do that. I know you're fighting her. She'll kill you."

"She can't kill me. She can't lay a finger on me. My parents' legacy stretches further than you seem to understand. If something happens to me, the whole Academy will turn on her."

"She'll hurt the people you care about."

"And if you don't do this, she'll hurt you and the people you care about. The people I care about know how to take care of themselves. They're already in this fight against Ishani Singh, even without me. Your family isn't. You didn't choose this. Let me protect you, Ryan."

"Why? I've done nothing to deserve your help."

"It's not about deserve. The facts are, you're a person. A person that wants to do good but is being forced to do bad. That doesn't make you bad. It makes her bad. If you don't do what she asks, you're just another one of her victims. But that's not all you are. What you deserve, Ryan, is to heal and to live a life free from her influence. Same as everyone else."

He takes a trembling breath. "What do I tell her? You want me to lie?"

"Not entirely," I assure. "She already knows I'm visiting Dion. If you lie about that, she'll know and she'll punish you." I chew on my lip. "But I am planning an attack on one of her bases. You could feed her false information. Say I heard she's keeping Dion's daughter in another location and am attacking there. It could get her to divert her defenses."

"It could, but there's no guarantee. You can't actually be thinking about attacking a base full of Hunters and Protectors, can you?"

"It's still being workshopped," I admit. "Especially since I'll be going in alone."

"What!? Mason, that's insane. You could be killed."

My eyes slide to Kala's headstone. "Maybe," I agree, squeezing Ryan's shoulder. "But it would be worth it to give someone a chance at a better life."