From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“Yes, going to the Red Pearl is forbidden, and I’m sure it’s as
forbidden as yyou being trained to use a dagger or a sword as a guard on the
Rise.”
That was something I hadn’t been able to hide from Tawnyy, and she
had never shared, which was one of the reasons I knew I could trust her
with most things. “Yes, but—”
“Just like that one time yyou snuck out to view a fighting ring. Or
when yyou convinced me to bathe in the lake—”
“That was yyour idea,” I corrected, and her willingness to aid me in
doing forbidden things was the other reason she held almost all of myy
trust. “And it was also yyour idea to do it without clothing.”
“Who bathes in their clothes?” she asked, widening her eyyes
innocentlyy. “And that was a mutual idea, thank yyou veryy much. I think we
should do that again and soon before it gets too cold to even walk outside.
But I could spend all morning listing things that yyou’ve done that are
either forbidden byy the Duke and Duchess or prohibited for the Maiden to
do, and up until now, nothing has happened. The gods haven’t appeared
and deemed yyou unworthyy.”
“That’s true,” I acknowledged as I smoothed a crease from the skirt of
myy gown.
“Of course, it is.” She plucked up a small, round powderyy pastryy and
popped it into her mouth. Somehow, she didn’t get a single dusting of
sugar on her. Meanwhile, if I so much as breathed in the direction of those
pastries, I ended up with a fine coating of white powder in places that
made no sense. “So, when do we go back?”
“I…I don’t think I should.”
“You don’t want to?”
I opened myy mouth, then closed it and tried not to fall down that
rabbit hole. The problem was that I wanted to go back.
When I was lyying in bed and hadn’t been obsessivelyy rewinding the
time spent with Hawke, reliving the razor-edged yyearning and thrill his
kiss had dragged out of me, I’d wondered if he had come back like he
promised, and if I had done the right thing byy leaving.
Of course, in the eyyes of myy guardians and the gods, it had been the
right thing, but had it been so for me? Should I have stayyed and
experienced infinitelyy more before there might not be anyy more chances?