"You'll have until the end of the summer to enroll."

And with that, Dashi was gone and Nori's world was turned upside down. Her gaze dropped to the floor along with her heart.

The proposition was clear enough. But the choice was impossible.

If she enrolled in Uroko Institute, Khala would benefit from an entire bluefin tuna per week. Nearly a thousand meals per week. Fifty people could stay fully fed as long as she stayed in Uroko.

She would be back under her family's thumb. They'd be worse to her than ever. She'd never even have the chance to leave, let alone be given the choice. She'd be back to being Nori Harper. She would never be just Nori again. Her independence, her identity, her spirit, all gone.

But could she say that her suffering wouldn't be worth keeping fifty people from starvation? At the very least, she had to think it through.

She would move back to Kiham. Would she spend her nights at the Institute? Or would her parents force her to remain at their family's estate? How would her family treat her? What ways would they find to punish her rebellion? Of course, it wouldn't matter that she had returned. It would only matter that she had left.

And how would the other students of the Institute treat her? Would they reconcile the elevated status of the Harper name with the fact that Nori was just a student—the way that the Academy students had done with Julienne? Or would they treat her as a traitor, punishing her for putting another kingdom over their own? Even her presence at the Institute would be an act of betrayal, motivated only by her sympathy for non-Urokan causes. Nationalism ran like a river through Uroko, and that river never ran dry.

Or worse yet, would her fellow students admire her? It wouldn't be for her political stances. It would be for her name. To them, she would represent the Harpers. She could imagine what horrible, awful things they might say in her presence about the Khalyans, thinking she would was like the rest of her family.

And what about her teachers? The Harpers weren't just international enforcers. They were a domestic political entity. Perhaps some of her teachers had benefited from Harper influence—they'd treat her well. But, more likely, some teachers had been held back by Harper influence. They'd take revenge on her.

It wasn't uncommon. When Nori was twelve, a Red Jacket Chef had attacked the Harper estate claiming that they were undermining him. And he was right. As Nori's father later revealed, the Red Jacket had an up and coming restaurant that was drawing international attention. But then the Chef's favorite vendors stopped selling to him, and the ones that still sold to the Chef all started to raise their prices, higher, higher, higher, the Harper thumb on the scale. The Harpers couldn't have another family with even a top five restaurant in Uroko. They got their wish. The Red Jacket fled their estate and went on the run, but Stags ran faster.

And there were a dozen other ways her family might have wronged the Head Chefs of the Institute. The Harpers often had the final edit on publications, they had a seat in determining Chef promotions, they could influence entire markets. Nori would never be able to trust her teachers. Even the ones that played nice might only be waiting for the day that they could betray her.

Sure, she'd make new friends. Perhaps somewhere in the mass of suck-ups and supremacists, a few would be genuine. Shiso wasn't all bad. Maybe they could be real friends. Shiso might use Nori to get closer to the Harpers, but that would be fine. Nori would use Shiso to get away from them. After spending time with her family, Nori would bow at Shiso's feet to get away.

Under the Harper umbrella in Uroko, Nori would see professional success without even having to try for it. She'd probably own her own restaurant by the time she was a Blue Jacket. It'd be sold out for the first year—even if she rebelled and made the worst food imaginable, the guests would eat it and say how much they loved it all the way to the toilet to throw it up. They wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of the Harpers. She wasn't even sure if she wanted her own restaurant, but wanting wasn't relevant to what her life would become.

Her new life would be one of a million grievances. She couldn't hope to predict them all, so she imagined them as a wide-spreading map—the map of her future—and crumbled that paper up into a little ball. She placed it on the scales and found it to be a much lighter burden than the starvation of dozens.

But that wasn't all of the equation, was it?

It wasn't just about the new life she would lead. It was about the one she would be leaving behind. Instead of imagining the orphans of Khala, she imagined the orphan she had already saved. She wanted to see Chandler grow up. She wanted to go back to The Gift with all of her renewed purpose. There were people in Ambrosia City that needed help too, and Nori finally had the mind to do something about it. But she'd have to say goodbye to The Gift.

She'd have to say goodbye to the Academy. She imagined how the Head Chefs would react at the news of her departure. Aubergine and Pomona might cry. Strangely, Nori found herself most concerned about missing Colby. The other students had avoided him at all costs, but Nori found a strange, perverse, and familiar comfort in his verbal abuse. She still had so much to learn from him.

Stolen story; please report.

She'd miss her bedroom. It was crowded and the window was drafty and the bed was hard but it was the first place she had been able to sleep without feeling someone's eyes on her. Sure, Blanche kept her up late with her chatting, and when Nori finally fell asleep, she'd be woken up by Mindy returning from Cafe Julienne, but Nori never slept so well. And the two girls were like the sisters she had always wanted. When she cried to them about being afraid that she'd have to go back home, they had comforted her in a way that few in her life ever had.

She thought of the other students. She'd miss their late nights in the lounge. Oliver's jokes and drinks. Benedict always asking Nori for advice about Blanche. Juniper playing with Nori's hair. Hyssop's Hyssie fits. Julienne's playfulness. Cress's wildness. She thought about everyone and what she'd miss most about them.

And then, finally, she thought about Archie.

Oh, Archie.

Her heart dropped to a new low, growing frigid in its new solitude.

Nori hadn't just cried to Blanche and Mindy about her money problems. She had cried to them when Archie had been attacked by the licertes. She had cried to them about him after the Cafe Julienne incident. She had cried to them about him just before Winter's Blossom. She had shut him out—she had been so mad—but she had missed him so desperately. And then there was his imprisonment. She ran out of tears during those days.

She thought of the time they had met. The Induction Ceremony. Had she even said a word? But he didn't care. He saved her. He took on the burden of sponsoring her, a total stranger—even if he handled that responsibility poorly. And then, just days later in that same great hall, as Archie floated up to the ceiling, they held that noodle and she felt something far more complex and magical than essence.

She had fought with him so often in those early days. Not that he didn't deserve it. Especially in those first few months, he was irritating and self-absorbed and legacy-obsessed and prideful and stubborn and immature. To a certain extent, none of those qualities went away. But Nori had seen other qualities.

Courage. Kindness. Intelligence. Loyalty. Dedication.

Thinking about it brought her heart back from the icy depths.

It wasn't just about saying goodbye to her past with Archie. She was afraid of saying goodbye to her future. And no matter how many ways things could end up, she couldn't shake the feeling that Archie was a part of that.

By leaving Uroko, Nori had created a life for herself full of happiness and independence. But the future of that life was even more enticing. She let her mind free to explore its possibilities.

Her imagination stumbled into a scene that felt so real that it was more like a memory than a daydream. She was in Petrichor, having just woken up and come down from Archie's room. She joined his mother in the kitchen, and even though it was just the two of them in that room, Nori could feel the whole town buzzing. She couldn't see them, but she could feel them. Visitors had come from all over, many of them Urokan. Petrichor was the beating heart of the town and everyone wanted in.

She had never imagined something that felt so real. She knew it was her future.

But she also knew that it wouldn't be if she left the Academy.

And what was that future worth? She wanted it so badly, but could she stomach the consequences?

Could she live happily knowing what it had cost others?

The questions and possibilities tore Nori apart. Desire battled morality. Selfishness battled selflessness. Countless possibilities and benefits and consequences waged unholy war in her head.

And then she remembered where she was.

She looked up to see King Tritsun and Gaden studying her. Upon making eye contact, Gaden's face reflected Nori's anguish and looked away. But King Tritsun did not look away. He stared at Nori with a soberingly neutral expression. His eyes held Nori's for a moment. She was desperate for him to excuse her. To tell her that she shouldn't take the deal. That her individuality was worth it. That he'd find a way to make things right in her stead.

But he was the king of the Khalyan people, and he did not balk at suffering.

"What will you do?" he asked.

And that was the match that set off the powderkeg. Nori jumped to her feet and burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands. She knocked over her chair as she dashed for the door. She couldn't face them. She couldn't answer the question. She couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't.

She ran and ran and ran. Running was the only thing she could think of. She was blind to the features of the palace, navigating by intuition. She didn't remember running across the plaza. If the diners at the Monastery looked at her, she didn't notice. Somehow, through her tears, she spotted him in the yard. She nearly tackled him, burying her face in his chest and crying as hard as the night he had been imprisoned.

"Nori!" Archie's face went from surprise to joy to confusion to concern all in a second. "Hey, hey, hey…It's okay."

"I don't want to go back," she sobbed. "I don't want to go back."

"It's okay," Archie repeated as he rubbed Nori's head.

"What's going on?" Barley asked.

"I don't want to go back," Nori repeated. She couldn't say anything else.

"Here, let's get you to your room," Arche said. "Barley? Let's get her on your back?"

He tried to pull away, but Nori hugged him tighter.

He made a few fumbling words before resigning to his fate. "You've gotten so skinny. Here, come on, I'll take you."

She let him go just long enough for him to spin around, then she gripped him tight and he hoisted her up. She liked being carried by him. She wanted him to carry her far, far away, to some distant corner of the world where they'd never even have to think about Uroko again.

"I don't want to go back," she whispered in his ear.

And even though she had explained nothing to him, he understood.

"You'll never have to, Nori. Just leave everything to me."

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