I’m Lucien’s Heartless.
Fione is…
Malachite and I—
“I hurt you,” I say, reaching out to touch the edge of his face. Not the ointment-smeared wounds that must be agony but the skin still whole.
His red eyes soften, and his smirk crooks high. “You wish you managed to hurt me.”
“Mal—”
“It’s over, Zera.” He cuts me off. Not hard. Easily. Gently. “You made your choice. And for once, I happen to agree with it.”
I step behind the wooden divider, pulling the rags of my clothes over my head. It’s not all forgiveness from Malachite. It can’t be. His wounds are too fresh for that. My betrayal up until that moment on the mountain peak is too fresh for that. It’s not forgiveness, but it’s the start of it. Better than nothing. Kinder than nothing. He’s so kind to me, even after everything.
I’m going to cry. I’m going to cry behind this godsdamned ugly divider. Ugh, no. I’m not. He wouldn’t want that. I know that.
I know him.
I’m so glad I know him.
Quiet at last. A moment, behind the ugly divider, where I can be alone after everything. Well, not all alone.
never alone.
The hunger is so faint, I have to strain to hear it. That’s a first. And possibly a last. Lucien’s trying hard to suppress it with his magic. Devoting way too much to it, probably, more than Nightsinger and Varia ever did. It doesn’t feel sustainable.
Me as his Heartless. Him as my witch. Is that sustainable? Is it even right?
What do we do after losing everything? We lost. Varia has the Bone Tree. We lost. I wasn’t supposed to lose, but I did. I was supposed to get my heart, and now…
Now I have my friends again.
And maybe, some small part of me whispers, that’s a fair trade.
“Well.” I step out in the mustard dress and try the coyest of smiles. “I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky to still be alive to complain at all.”
“Yeah.” Malachite’s mouth twitches as he offers his arm and a dripping noble accent. “My clashing lady? Shall we venture out into the city and hunt our lovable quarry down?”
“Verily,” I agree, taking his arm with a terribly overacted haughtiness.
…
My room is a tower room, I learn, about as quickly as it takes me to descend the seemingly endless spiral staircase. But it’s not the only room by far—this entire tower is an inn of some sort, with numbered doors all along the descent and a main room at the bottom serving drinks at a small wooden bar. The farther we go down, the colder it gets. Malachite opens the door and icicles ooze off the doorway, cracking and sliding soundlessly into the banks of snow below like blades into scabbards.
“It’s even colder outside!” I whine. “How do people live like this?”
“Warmly,” he drawls, motioning around at the rope bridges nearby, a throng of people walking back and forth about their daily business in heavy, eye-searingly colored wool. The beneather leads me over one bridge, then another, and I’m surprised at how sturdy the structures are compared to how fragile they looked from far up. No slots open in the lacquered slats, and not a single sway in the bridge, not even when it’s full to bursting with momentum and wind.
Every step I take over a bridge slat is another step of worry. Of fear.
What do we even do now? Varia is the most powerful witch in the world, isn’t she? And then there’s us—my thief instincts muse over survival first, always. A beneather, a very smart girl with a crossbow aim, a witch, and a single Heartless. I know we have our strengths. But realism bites down on me hard—we have strengths, but none strong enough to face the Bone Tree power I felt in Varia.
She touched me even through my Weeping. Weeping, my last safety. A safety that’s supposed to be impenetrable.
I’m so lost in thought, Malachite has to suddenly jerk me to one side to avoid a townsperson. “Hey, you feelin’ all right?” He peers into my face.
“Y-Yeah.” I smile. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
The air is so crisp and thin up here, I feel dizzy and frozen on the inside all at once. The only sources of warmth are the occasional cracked-open tower doors as we pass, roaring hearths inside. Tower chimneys puff banners of velvet smoke up into the sky, rivaled in motion only by the multitude of spinning brass crosses on the roofs.
“Weather vanes,” Malachite says, pointing to one fashioned in the shape of a spinning valkerax. “For wind speed, direction. That sort of thing. Apparently they predict future temperatures, too.”
“How?” I marvel.
He shrugs and says simply, “Polymaths. Helkyris is crowded with them.”
“Hard to pick them out,” I muse. “When I’m so used to them wearing those hideous brown robes.”
“Didn’t you wear one once?”
“And I hated every minute of it.” I smirk up at him. It’s true, though—unlike Cavanos, the polymaths in Breych don’t adhere to a strict dress code. Or any dress code at all. I can’t see a single brown thing—just color after woolen color, like flowers crowded together or overexcited butterflies.
“I think I get it,” I say finally as we cross a far wider bridge, this one carved with wolf heads on either end.
“Took you that long, hmm?” Malachite drawls.
“It’s all rock and snow here.” I ignore him. “Gray, white, gray, and more white. What else do you do when you’re living in a monochromatic world, other than dress up to the explosively hued nines?”
Malachite smirks and I go quiet, watching my boots cross the bridge, the wind whipping my hair around my neck. I put one hand on my chest. It’s so strange—I was so convinced a day ago that, if I walked up that mountain, I’d come back down human. Remembering. Whole. But my chest is still empty. Life hasn’t worked out the way I planned for, schemed for, sacrificed for.
Betrayed for.
Lucien’s my witch. My heart is missing still, but it’s never been fuller. I’ve never felt it more than this moment, swelling with something I can’t even name. Pride? Relief? Fear. All of it mixed together in a murky whirlpool, and me holding on to whatever pieces of the shipwreck that float by. Right now, it’s the idea of seeing Lucien again. My feet get quicker, my thoughts slower.
He’s my witch.
There’s a contract between us, magical and invisible, and I might still not know all the rules. I know more of them now, to be sure—more than I did three years ago when I first became Heartless. But not all of them. I don’t want to have to know all of them. I’m happy to be alive, that we’re all alive, but a nagging worm gnaws at the base of my skull—I should have my heart back. I’m meant to be human.