“If you want to go to school, you’ll go to school,” she said, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that she did actually care what I wanted. “I can’t blame your father for wanting to protect you, but he’s going about it the wrong way, and eventually he’ll figure that out.”

I wished I had her confidence. I still couldn’t say I knew my father all that well, but I did know he was very stubborn. And sure of himself. If he’d already decided that school wasn’t safe, I honestly didn’t see how either my mother or I could talk him into it.

Of course, the fall semester didn’t start for another eight weeks or so. There was always a chance we were both being overly optimistic in thinking I’d be alive when it rolled around.

*   *   *

My back hit the mat with a sound between a squish and a thud. The impact forced the air out of my lungs, so all I could do was lie on my back like a dead bug and try to breathe. Keane came to tower over me, shaking his head and curling his lip in disdain.

“That was pathetic,” he told me. So nice to have him heap on the positive reinforcement.

I was struggling too hard to breathe to tell him what I thought of him, but I’m sure he could see it in my eyes. He’d told me once that if I didn’t want to bash his face in during our sparring sessions, then he wasn’t doing his job. He was doing his job just fine.

“If I were the bad guy, you’d be dead by now,” he continued.

Yeah, rub it in, I thought as I finally succeeded in drawing a little air into my lungs. I hated the nasty wheezing sound I was making, but I couldn’t seem to make it stop.

Why, oh why had I asked for self-defense lessons? Even my best moves would be useless against the kind of enemy the Faerie Queens would send to kill me. But after Finn had been brutally beaten by a bunch of Knights while I could do nothing to help him, I’d decided I wanted at least the illusion of usefulness. That’s why I’d started my lessons with Finn’s son, Keane, which I regretted on a regular basis.

Even when my breath finally started to come easier, I stayed lying on the floor, not looking forward to going another round. We were sparring in the living room of my safe house, the furniture pushed up against the walls to make room for the mats. We’d have had more space if we’d done our sparring out in the guardroom, but we’d also have had an audience—Finn. Keane would have been fine with that, but not me.

It wasn’t just that I didn’t want Finn to see me making a fool of myself, either. I had a big, whopping favor to ask of Keane, one I didn’t dare let anyone else hear. Now, if I could just find the nerve to actually ask …

“Are you going to take a nap, or are you going to get off your ass and get back to work?” Keane asked.

I glared up at him. My body ached from being repeatedly slammed into the mats, and my muscles were quivering with exhaustion. Keane was theoretically taking it easy on me, but you couldn’t tell it by the way I felt.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” I grumbled, pushing myself painfully up into a sitting position.

He snorted. “Not in fifteen minutes I don’t.”

Was that how long it had been since we’d started? It felt like at least an hour.

“Guess we need to work on your stamina on top of everything else.”

I knew he was only doing what he’d been hired to do, but I was sick and tired of his attitude. He treated me like I was some kind of idiot because I couldn’t fight like a trained warrior. Well, excuse me, but before I’d come to Avalon, brawling hadn’t been a big part of my life.

A hint of malice kindled in my chest. Once, just once, I wanted to get the upper hand on my obnoxious jerk of a teacher. And if I had to play dirty, well that was just tough.

I made as if to get up, groaning dramatically. I didn’t expect Keane to fall for it—usually, it’s like he knows what I’m going to do even before I do—but maybe after a few weeks of these lessons, he was starting to get complacent. I could see in his eyes that his attention had wandered, and I took advantage. Instead of getting up, I propelled myself forward, hitting Keane’s legs and knocking them out from under him.

He gave a startled yelp, and I had about half a second to feel a thrill of victory. In retrospect, I should have come at him from the side, so my momentum would have carried me out from under him as he fell. As it was, he landed flat on top of me, smashing my face into the mat as once again my breath whooshed out of my lungs. He was coordinated enough that he could have stopped his fall with his hands, but no, he let his whole weight come down on me, practically crushing me.

“Nice move,” he said, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. “You’ve really improved your situation.” To emphasize his point, he used his powerful legs to pin my arms to my sides, then held my ankles down.

I wriggled and squirmed—once I could breathe well enough to do even that—but there wasn’t much I could do when I was facedown on the mats with my arms and legs pinned. I could move my head, which Keane had taught me to use as a weapon, but I couldn’t reach him with it, so I couldn’t do any damage. I’d definitely lost this round.

“You can let go now,” I grumped. “I got the point.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like letting go just yet.” He sounded really amused. Glad he was having such a great time at my expense.

I let out a little growl of frustration. How could I possibly ask this asshole for help? With anything? And yet, there was no one else I could think of who might be able to help me get to Kimber’s party without my dad’s permission.