She wants to say no. She wants to say that she can do it, she just has to try harder. She wants to be good enough. For a heart-stopping moment, she's reminded of her dad, and the way he never let her go out to check the traps with him, the way he always kept her home, where it was safe. Because she wasn't good enough. This isn't about that, not for the same reasons, but it makes her stomach feel cold for a moment, and she sighs.

"I don't want it to be," she says honestly. "I guess... I guess it is, though." She doesn't like admitting it, but it's still true. Maybe school isn't as important in Darrow, of all places, where people can disappear at a moment's notice or potentially die because of whatever random catastrophe the city dreams up around them. But she wants to do well. She wants to be good enough. And she hasn't been.