She's too grateful for his presence to smack him at the moment, but she does roll her eyes. "Was I not clear enough?"

But fine, she'll answer the question. "I don't feel hopeless anymore."

Because she did. By the end of her month on the Clipper, she couldn't see any way out of it short of disappearing back to her death. She didn't want that, but it was starting to feel better than the drawn out alternative.

"Was it terrible on the other ship?" Ulla asks. Physically he looks fine, but there are plenty of other ways to hurt people. "Iris and Jacobi were on mine. Were you on your own?"

Maybe he had Lark with him, but she knows several of his most important people were on the Clipper.

Her arms tighten around Warren's shoulders when he confirms that he'd been alone, with no one to lean on or hold onto, only people to worry over. "If I had seen him again, but not you, I would have drowned him."

"I didn't kill anyone the whole time I was an inmate. I suppose I can resist the urge now." She's mostly joking. She doesn't have any intention of trapping herself here again, and she does take this seriously.

But if she hadn't gotten Warren back, she wouldn't have graduated today anyway, so Eiffel would have had her to worry about.

She laughs. "You don't need to sound so proud about that. It's just lucky you made me care about you as much as I wanted to stab you, or I might not have managed it. You're very irritating."

"You're the worst," Ulla tells him fondly, leaning her head against his shoulder again and relaxing against him. She's going to revel in this until they get where they're going and he has to put her down. "I have things to tell you about the past month, and I want to hear what happened to you. But it can wait till everything settles a little. Healings first."