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skills as a barber were dubious. The result was a ragged cap that reached to Raisa’s earlobe on one side and her chin on the other.
    Raisa’s hair had always been a point of vanity for her—long and thick, a wavy mass falling nearly to her waist. It was her best physical feature. She closed her eyes and extended her neck, remembering how Magret used to brush it with a boar-bristle hairbrush—
    “You’d be warmer and dryer in your tent, my—Morley,” Hallie said, breaking in on her thoughts once again. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
    Raisa bit back a sharp retort. In camp, it seemed they were constantly on top of one another. Everything was difficult—from starting a fire to using the privy. Boredom and the constant close contact made them all snappish.
    Well, it made Raisa snappish, at least. The others took it in stride.
    “If I spend any more time staring at four canvas walls, I’ll go mad,” Raisa grumbled.
    At first she’d shared a tent with Amon, Mick Bricker, and Talia Abbott. It was three per tent, with Raisa making the fourth since she was extra. That was fair in a triple of nine plus one. It had been cramped but cozy.
    Then she’d awakened in the middle of the night to find herself snuggled up against Amon, one arm flung across his chest, nose buried in his wool undershirt. As children, they’d slept that way a hundred times.
    This time it was different. Raisa crashed into consciousness, suddenly aware of his familiar scent, the thump of his heart under her arm, his rigid body. Amon lay on his back, still as stone, as though she were a viper who might strike if he twitched. He was jammed against the wall of the tent, eyes wide open, hands fisted, sweat beading on his forehead. He took quick, shallow breaths like he was in pain.
    When he saw she was awake, he disentangled himself and stalked out of the tent.
    After that, he’d swapped Mick with Hallie and moved into one of the other tents, leaving the three female guards together.
    It wasn’t like she’d rolled onto him on purpose. It wasn’t like she’d attacked him.
    He was inconsistent. Half the time he insisted she act like any soldier, the other half he was making special rules that applied only to her. She never went on patrol, and she never stood watch alone. He told the others it was because she was a first-year cadet and the others more experienced. He’d turned into the worst kind of bully.
    They had plenty of food, but it was nasty stuff—hard biscuits and dried meat of undetermined origin, cheese going moldy in the damp. The nuts and dried fruit weren’t bad, but there was only so much of that Raisa could stomach. At the middays, if she didn’t finish her portion, Amon would nag her until she did.
    “You’re losing weight, Morley. Up here, you need insulation.
    Once we start moving, you’ll need to keep up. I don’t want you fainting away from hunger. No one’s going to carry you, skin and bones or not.” And so on.
    So what if she lost weight? Anyone would, under the circumstances.
    They drilled every morning. Walked for miles in a large circle around the camp, in all kinds of weather. Every day, Amon assigned someone to match swords with Raisa, to work on her stance, her stamina, her form. Everyone took a turn but Amon Byrne. He probably knew what a mismatch that would be.
    Still, the bouts were always humiliating. And exhausting. Everyone in the Wolfpack had a longer reach than she did. They could stand back in total safety and clip her at their leisure, smack her with the flat of their blades while she was kept constantly moving. It was like having eight big brothers and sisters to pick on her.
    “If you’re going to be a cadet,” Amon would say, “you’ll be competing with people who’ve been fencing since they could hold a stick.” People such as Amon, who’d always known he would be a soldier like his father.
    Maybe he wanted to work her hard enough to wear her down, to make her give up the idea of