Fifteen. Fifteen is enough to disfigure my back. Enough to cut my flesh from my bones and let infection set in if I’m not given first aid afterward. Fifteen is enough to incapacitate me, but not enough to kill me.

My armor would protect me from the worst of it, but no one gets whipped without baring her back. They’re going to see that I have armor, and then they’re going to take it from me and hurt me.

I set my jaw to keep my mouth from trembling, and meet Rowan’s gaze with as much defiance as I can muster. He just smiles sadly and steps a little closer, the whip still coiled in his hands. The leather is cracked, and the tip is stained dark from the blood of all the people who’ve had the misfortune to be punished by him.

“Your father didn’t bring the controller to his leader,” he says. “You did. You knew about the bounty on your father’s head. You understood that the tech hadn’t been given to him through official channels and that we were searching for it. Your father didn’t try to use what didn’t belong to him. You did. You are as much at fault in this as Marcus McEntire and the Commander. Your father isn’t here to correct your actions. That duty now falls to me as the person you’ve wronged. I’m sure your father would be disappointed to see the kind of person his daughter has become.”

I’m stretched on my tiptoes, leaning hard against the post in an effort to keep the rope that binds my wrists above my head from cutting off all the circulation to my hands—not exactly the most defiant stance—but I lift my chin and speak in a loud, clear voice that would make Dad proud.

“I am exactly who my father raised me to be.”

Rowan shakes his head and then looks past me. “Which of you wants the privilege of purging Rachel from the dishonor of her actions?”

Ian says, “I should be the one—”

“I’ll do it.” Samuel brushes past me and takes the whip. His expression is distant, his mouth set in a thin, firm line. But his eyes meet mine for a second, and I take scant comfort in the steady confidence he exudes. He’s just doing his duty. Just trying to protect Ian from more sanctioned violence.

He won’t be trying to kill me.

I hope.

My wrists hurt where the rope digs into my skin. My heart pounds, and the air feels too thick to breathe as Rowan says, “Bare her back.”

Ian presses close to me and slides his dagger down the back of my tunic, rending the fabric until it hangs from each shoulder like a pair of tattered wings.

“She’s wearing armor.” Rowan sounds surprised.

“We took some from a band of highwaymen on our way to Lankenshire,” Ian says. The casual way he uses “we,” like we’re still on the same team, still allies, makes something inside of me ache.

We faced down the highwaymen just after the bruises from Ian’s poison showed up on Sylph and the others who’d been injected. The night we defeated the highwaymen, we celebrated our tiny victory, only to quickly lose heart as those with purple bruises on their bodies started dying while we were helpless to stop it.

Gaining the armor was the beginning of losing my best friend, and I can’t bear to hear Ian talk about it like it was nothing. Just one more event in a long line of things that somehow ended up with me tied to a whipping post in Rowansmark when I should be searching the city for the army headquarters, for the tech labs, for the weapons stash before Logan arrives, and it’s too late.

“Get it off of her.” Rowan nods to Ian.

“No,” I say as Ian begins unknotting the rope around my wrists.

Rowan’s expression is so full of condescending patience, I want to wipe it off his face with the bottom of my boot. “You cannot be cleansed by pain atonement unless we remove the armor.”

Ian finishes untying me and pulls me away from the post. I grab the front of my tunic to keep it in place.

“You sentenced me to fifteen lashes. Not to be stripped by one of your trackers. Turn your backs. I’ll remove it myself.”

Rowan raises a brow and gives me a look that almost feels approving and says, “As you wish. If you try to escape or to hurt one of us while our backs are turned, Ian and Samuel have my permission to whip you until you are dead. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

I wait until they turn their backs and then let my ruined tunic fall to the ground while I wrestle with the armor. My fingers are still clumsy from lack of circulation. It’s hard to grip the thin metal, but I force myself to grab hold of the bottom hem and then lift while I twist my body like a snake shedding its skin. The armor peels away from me, leaving only the silky undertunic that Logan found for me in the hospital at Lankenshire. The fabric whispers against my skin as I pull it over my head as well. I can’t feel the satiny smoothness of the undertunic without remembering the way Logan’s breath caught in his chest or the way my heart thundered in my ears as he stood so close behind me. I wonder if I’ll still have the power to make Logan forget how to breathe once he sees the scars Samuel is about to give me.

I snatch my outer tunic even as I let the undertunic and the armor fall. The air that seconds ago felt too warm now sends chills over my exposed skin. I feel vulnerable—cracked wide open in front of my enemies—and I have to blink rapidly to stem the sudden tears that sting my eyes as I pull my tunic over my chest and face the post again.

“Secure her wrists,” Rowan says, and Ian springs into action. In seconds, I’m once more trussed up, my cheek pressed against the scratchy wooden post while I stand on my tiptoes to ease the bite of the rope on my wrists. Once Ian steps back, Rowan says, “Rachel Adams, in accordance with the laws of Rowansmark, I declare you a thief and an insurgent who needs to learn how to respect authority. The penalty for your actions is fifteen lashes with the whip and a stay in my personal dungeon until Logan McEntire returns the controller and faces the consequences for his actions as well. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”