Timothy
She'd asked me to stay after.
Lily Bradford didn't ask for things — that was one of the few facts about her I'd have staked my life on three years ago. She informed you that you were going to do something and let you discover the consequences of declining.
So when she caught me at the water barrel after the last session and asked me to drill form with her again after the others cleared out, I heard the old command under it and braced for the version of her I remembered.
It didn't come. She just watched me with those slate-green eyes and waited, like my answer was genuinely mine to give.
I should have said no. I had a hundred reasons and every one of them was three years old and still bleeding.
"Fine," I said. "The lower ring."
That's how I ended up in an empty training yard
