17

Moonskemp

I was wrong.

I know, shocking. Me, of all people on the two gods’ green Arathess, wrong? But I am—it isn’t a banquet Varia is getting ready for tonight. It’s Moonskemp.

I’d almost forgotten about Moonskemp with all the valkerax and Lucien feelings and war preparations going on. Moonskemp comes the week after Verdance Day. Verdance Day marks the changing of seasons, but Moonskemp marks the mythological day in which long ago the Old God sundered the too-bright single moon—which allowed no one on Arathess to sleep—into three moons. Vetris, of course, has modified the story, in that they celebrate the New God sundering the moons.

I’d been so busy worrying in the carriage this morning that I hadn’t given any thought to the garlands of pale yellow moonflowers being hung about in the city or to the dishes of red-and-blue-dyed sea salt left out on the doorsteps. Usually there’s a midnight feast of thin buckwheat pancakes in which fresh summer fruits and vegetables are wrapped, and a roast red-tailed duck to signify a change for the better, but with the war enacted and rationing already in effect, the only people who can conceivably indulge in the traditional duck are, of course, the nobles.

The maids who help Varia dress won’t stop chattering about the “dance” tonight, a Moonskemp dance in the grand ballroom. Apparently the nobles are intent on making this last holiday before the breakout of the war a decadent one.

Varia dons her dress—quiet the entire time—and leaves around sunset, dripping clear quartz jewels and leaving me to the empty apartments. I flit my fingers over her boudoir, where a strange bracelet and earrings lie—made entirely of ivory of some kind, carved with flowers and vines. Varia obviously chose the quartz gems over this pair.

Feelings aren’t jewelry. But neither are they scars. They aren’t fleeting, but neither are they permanent. I think of Y’shennria, of the scars on her neck, and then of her gentle smile at me.

Even scars can fade.

I still feel terrible about being so cruel to Fione, and Lucien’s anger toward his sister because of me pushes the guilt down my throat even more. They’re going to be at the dance—they have to be, as Firstblood nobles. As an Y’shennria, I suppose I should be there, too. I pull out the last dress left to me from Varia’s old things—a soft cream one of flax and lace. I catch my reflection in the boudoir mirror: thin dark circles, thinner lips. What does Lucien see in me? Is there anything in me worth more than standing against his beloved sister? Is there a light in the world strong enough to shine through the dark things I’ve done?

I don’t know. I wish I knew, but these questions just hang, invisible, with no answer.

you will never have an answer. The hunger laughs. all you have is me.

I touch the ivory jewelry, slowly pulling the bracelet on and clipping the earrings in.

Nobles meander the halls on their way to the ballroom, and a familiar gentle voice breaks through the sparse crowd. “Lady Zera!”

I turn to see Lady Tarroux running toward me, out of breath but dazzling in a cool pink dress with a layered skirt, the shape emulating a rosebud just opening. Nobles murmur as she passes—running won’t do for a lady. But now more than ever, she doesn’t seem to care.

“Lady Tarroux.” I make a bow. “You look as if a groundskeeper just picked you fresh from a bush!”

She blushes pink enough to match her dress and offers me her arm. “Thank you. Will you walk with me?”

It’s a gesture so reminiscent of Fione, of the way she and I walked in the garden, that it makes my unheart sing with longing. If only she were Fione. If only she knew what I really was, she would be so afraid of me, just like Fione. Softly, I take her arm, and together we make our way to the dance.

“Out of curiosity and admiration,” I start, “I’ve heard running is good for you, but I’ve also heard the other nobles hate it.”

“Oh.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I am not overly concerned about what they think.”

This time I do laugh, and she blinks.

“Is something funny?”

“Sorry. I just spent two very exhausting weeks training to be extremely concerned with what the other nobles thought of me, so to hear you put it like that…it’s a bit like hearing a celeon say they can’t grow hair.”

It’s Lady Tarroux’s turn to laugh. “Forgive me, but that’s because you’re a Firstblood. How you conduct yourself is your social currency. But mine is, well, currency.”

It hits me then. “The war! Your father is funding a good amount of it, which means—” I smirk at her. “You’re the only one of us in the palace who can do whatever she wants.”

She becomes hesitant, lowering her lashes. “I would never do irresponsible things in the eyes of Kavar, but yes. Before the declaration of war, my father was funding Archduke Gavik’s white mercury research. So I’ve never had to concern myself overly much with public opinion.”

“Well.” I sigh. “That’ll make being queen a wee bit harder for you, won’t it?”

She stumbles in her pale pink shoes. “Q-Queen? What are you saying, Lady Zera?”

I chuckle and pull her by the arm playfully. “Come on. There’s dancing to be done.”

The Moonskemp ball is by no means a banquet—there’s much less decorum to it. No one is announced as they walk in. The grand ballroom is less extravagant than the banquet hall, smaller and yet just as packed with nobles. Moonskemp forbids the use of any light except for candles, colored with blue and red flames thanks to polymath powders, so the usual brightness of the oil and white mercury lamps is absent. Thousands of ruby- and sapphire-flamed candles drip and flicker on top of columns, tables, and statues, like thousands of miniature moons—the Blue Giant and Red Twins. A balcony stretches out beyond a wall of opened glass doors, the banister lined with melting candles. The ball is in full swing by the time I arrive, the scents of perfumes and wine heavy on the air.

I lean in to whisper in Lady Tarroux’s ear. “Y’shennria always taught me nobles do their best to remain reasonably sober during parties, but this is clearly an exception.”

She nods, her cinnamon eyes wide. Whether it’s the stress of the war or something else, a number of nobles are staggering around, sloshing their drinks and laughing far louder than is acceptable. I watch a noblewoman lean too far over some candles, and she shrieks as blue fire catches to her silk collar. She beats it out with her kerchief, laughing.

King Sref and Queen Kolissa are with Varia and Lucien, of course, glowing with pride and gathered with the ministers and a few other Goldblood nobles near the punch table. There’s a very good-looking Goldblood nobleman, and the queen seems intent on getting him and Varia to talk. I can’t see Fione, but I’m certain she can’t be happy about it. And Varia knows better than to let her displeasure show on her face. She smiles affably, but behind her smiling gaze I see daggers.

I watch my witch converse with her parents, her smile strained. She won’t tell them she’s a witch, and apparently she won’t tell them she’s in a relationship with Fione, either. They haven’t exactly been quiet about their relationship—the guards ordered to follow Varia around by King Sref no doubt have talked at some point—so I’m sure there are rumors I haven’t heard yet. But knowing how much noise was made around the Spring Brides and me for Lucien, I have no doubt the crown princess’s match will be enforced and celebrated in equal measure by her parents.

Unless, of course, she surfaces with an army of valkerax. With that much power, no one would dare tell her who to marry ever again.

But she would be dead soon after, wouldn’t she? A year? Maybe two? If Varia gets the Bone Tree, any marriage to Fione wouldn’t last forever, and that shreds my lungs like broken glass.

Lucien stands beside his parents, dressed in something bloodred, but my eyes skitter over him guiltily. He talks to the king and queen, but he won’t engage in small talk with Varia. He won’t even look her way. Because of me.

My guilt is short-lived as Lady Tarroux’s father—a tall man with a bright blond mustache—waves at her from the refreshment table, and she waves back.

“I’m jealous,” I admit. “I’m an orphan, so I can’t remember my father.”

“Oh.” Tarroux’s face falls. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It happened a long time ago.” I smile. “Are you on good terms with him?”

She sighs. “Usually, yes. But lately…” She shoots me a look. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear me complain.”

“Are you kidding? I complain all the time to anyone who’ll listen. The least I can do is give back. I promise—your secrets are safe with me.”

“It’s…it’s not really a secret,” she corrects. “It’s just… Father is afraid of the war. He wants to move the two of us back to Helkyris before it fully breaks out.”

My unheart sinks. If she moves, my plan to push her closer to Lucien will fail. The tenuous threads that are reaching out to bind them will be cut clean.

“Do you want to move?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Absolutely not. The temple is here and there are”—her eyes skirt over to Lucien’s frame and soften—“people whom I care for.”

I laugh a little under my breath. She practically has stars in her eyes over him.

“I hope you stay,” I say, nudging her knowingly. “I think you two would make a very cute couple.”

The words burn coming out, but some part of me knows they’re sincere. I want Lucien to have a peaceful, normal life, with a peaceful, normal girl. Tarroux just stares wistfully at Lucien. Finally, her father motions at her from the refreshment table, and she bids me a shy farewell and trots over.

I let out a hard, small breath. There’s a full musical stand in the corner, firehorns and windlutes chiming prettily into the dim room. The song changes to something more upbeat, easing a fraction of the tension in my chest, and suddenly the drunken nobles are clamoring to pair off and crowd the dance floor. I watch them twirl like colorful flowers over the marble, their loveliness eclipsed by the fact the open balcony shows the lights of Vetris below, and the thousands of crowded fires beyond the wall where the army sleeps.

Still, the smoke of the wartime forest razings lingers in the night sky.

“Lady Zera?”

I look up to see none other than Fione. She looks pensive but beautiful in a gray organza gown that makes her blue eyes seem more silver. She isn’t standing close to me, though it’s closer than usual. But that means little.

I smirk at her and nod over to where Varia’s standing. “Ah, parents. They’re truly clueless, aren’t they? Not that I would know. Or remember. But I imagine they can be.”

I don’t expect her to speak to me. After all, I can see her fists tightening in her skirts.

“Your jewelry is very pretty,” Fione offers finally, her words stiff. “It’s valkerax bone, isn’t it?”

I blink. “Is it?”

She nods, holding out her valkerax-headed cane so I can see it clearly beyond her sleeves. “You can tell by the way things look dimmer around it. Valkerax bones suck in light. See?”

I look at my bracelet and her ivory cane—I hadn’t noticed before with so much light around, but with only the candlelight, it’s easy to see the haze of dimness that surrounds the bones, as if the slightest of shadows is hanging over them and only them.

“It’s why the darkness in the pipe the valkerax skeleton was in seemed so oppressive,” Fione says.

“Oh!” I marvel. “I can always count on you to help things make more sense, Your Grace.”

A waiter passes with a tray of fruit, and Fione takes a delicate snowfig and rolls it around in her fingers with all her nervous energy. “Thank you.” She clears her throat after a moment. “For saving me, earlier.”

“Oh, psh.” I wave her off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I do. I have been. You knew you would stab yourself for touching me,” Fione insists. “But you pushed me out of the way anyway.”

for selfish reasons, the hunger snarls. to assuage your own guilt.

Fione speaks more quietly. “You said our friendship meant nothing. But then you saved me. So what am I supposed to believe now?”

It’s hard to bite my tongue rather than answer her. She can believe whatever she wants. But her beliefs are better off without me in them.

“Oh! Lord Grat.” I bow to the huge noble boy as he passes, his shoulders so broad they barely fit in his coat. He’s the perfect distraction. He was part of the duel nearly two weeks earlier, where he’d promised to win it for me, and he looks no less eager to see me now.

“Lady Zera!” He smiles. “I had no idea you were attending.”

“Neither did I, until a half ago.” I laugh, lacing his arm in mine. “Would you care to dance with me?”

Using Lord Grat as an excuse, I bid farewell to Fione stiffly and head to the dance floor. Lord Grat’s body is so big and distinct, it’s easy to get us space on the dance floor, so the only pair of feet I have to worry about stepping on are his. The music is so loud that it almost drowns out the hunger. It’s like hearing someone shout at me from another room—I know there’s hostility, but I can’t distinguish the exact words.

I haven’t danced since those clumsy lessons in Y’shennria’s manor, with Reginall leading me. But my body remembers slightly better than I do, and soon Lord Grat and I are moving smoothly over the floor.

“I know it’s rude of me.” Lord Grat shoots me a shy smile. “But everyone’s been dying to know…” He trails off, waiting for me to approve, and I nod.

“Ask me anything. As long as it’s not my measurements. I require compensation in the form of massive amounts of gold for those.”

He laughs, twirling me around, and then when I come to face him again, he blurts, “Are you still Prince Lucien’s Spring Bride?”

“Straightforwardness, here in the court? Why, Lord Grat, you must be terribly curious.”

Lord Grat’s cheeks tinge red, and he turns me again. There’s a break in the dance where we have to switch partners with the people diagonal to us, and it comes up just then, so Lord Grat lets me go. I spiral into the arms of another noble, thankful for the time to think of my answer and ready with a disarming smile for the stranger. Until I look up into his face.

Lucien.

He poses a striking figure in a red-breasted coat, his hair slicked back and his high cheekbones on full intimidating display, like two blades jutting out against the darkness. His posture is perfect, his eyes icy in their stillness. He’s beautiful. And I can’t bear to tear my gaze away. No matter how much I know I should, no matter how much I know I need to push him away, I can’t bring myself to.

Neither of us speaks.

His hand rests on the small of my back, feeling as if it’s burning a hole through my dress. Part of me shivers at the feel of our palms pressed together, so close to something like that night at the Hunt in his tent, when he kissed me.

The kiss. Suddenly, it’s all I can think about, my memory throbbing. I know those severe, dour lips that frown at me right now. I know the feel of them, how gentle and intoxicating they are.

“I have a confession,” Lucien says softly, his voice rumbling into my chest.

I compose my face, make it as unaffected as possible as I look up at him. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet, Your Highness. You’ve seen Lady Ania Tarroux around lately, I’m sure—”

“Do you remember,” he interrupts me, “the night we stopped Gavik’s raid, and you protected those people?”

Of course I remember. I remember every inch of the terrified screams, of Gavik’s cruelty. I snort. “A hollow sacrifice, considering I wouldn’t have died if I’d been shot.”

He pulls me closer then, our chests flush now in a way totally inappropriate for the court. His mouth is dangerously close and above my ear.

“I am beginning to tire of the way you belittle the selfless things you do.”

A sharp pain runs through my unheart.

selfless? The hunger finally breaks through to me, growling. we are incapable of selflessness.

“Whether you had died or not, you were willing to take the pain for them,” Lucien continues. “For once, Lady Zera, I ask of you: be as merciful with yourself as you are with everyone else.”

The dance demands a turn, but it’s abruptly and incredibly difficult to breathe deep. Lucien whirls me, and I woodenly move with the motion, returning to his arms.

“Lady Tarroux”—I make my voice strong—“is a lovely girl. I don’t usually say anything positive about nobles at all, for the obvious reasons, but she’s very different from them. And I know how much you appreciate difference. She’s honest, and sweet, and not at all hard to look at—”

“I won’t let Varia hurt you anymore,” he says, ignoring me bluntly.

“Miss Tarroux has never murdered anyone,” I say, soft and yet still loud enough for him to hear it. “She’s too upfront to ever lie to you. And best of all, I’m fairly certain she’d never try to kill you and take your heart for her own selfish needs—”

We stop. In the middle of the whirling ballroom, every color imaginable flitting by us, he tilts his head, his sharp jawline illuminated by the candlelight. I know what’s coming, as a hunting hound knows a foxhole, as the rooster knows the sun is coming, as a fish knows the tides. Some deep, old part of me—older than nineteen years by far—knows he is going to kiss me.

Lightning draws our bodies together—invisible fingers of lightning entwining around each other and locking us in place, hips to hips, chest to chest. The warmth of his lips, the soft insistence of his hands as they hold my waist—I can feel a strange fever building in me as his lips press to mine. He moves to my ear, the hollow beneath it, and kisses it gently, and I know then this is not the kiss from the Hunt. That kiss was a moon, longing and sweet. This kiss is the sun, blazing hot and brighter than the apex of sunrise, prickling my skin with sweat, nothing sweet or subtle about it. The heat wave nearly buckles my knees, and I hold fast to his coat to keep standing.

Half of me is screaming to pull away—this sunfire kiss will keep him running after me, not moving on. Half of me wants nothing more than to stay here, in this moment, embraced and wanted, the doubt and loneliness in my soul burning away.

He parts from me first, his dark eyes piercing down at me. “I will not kiss you a third time, Lady Zera, without you kissing me back. My pride will not allow it.”

A bittersweet taste lingers in my mouth, and the heated curtain lifts from my body. I can see—out of the corners of my eyes—people watching. Fione, Varia, Lady Tarroux, the furious king and shocked queen.

He isn’t giving up. Godsdamn him, he isn’t giving up! Have I not been obvious enough? What will it take for him to realize he’s better off without me? He is a prince; I am a Heartless. He has the world waiting for him, and I have only my regrets waiting for me. I will only pull him down.

It dawns on me slowly—I know exactly what I have to do.

unless you show him the darkness, he will never understand, he will never fear, he will never run.

The sound of the slap reverberating is the only thing that makes me realize I’ve actually done it. The numbness in my hand stings, and I clutch it. Lucien’s head rotates slowly back to me, the red handprint bright against his cheek, but his dark eyes gleam brighter than ever in the candlelight. His expression is set, unmoving.

It’s then I realize the windlutes and firehorns have stopped playing. The dance floor has stopped moving, the nobles staring in half-drunk horror at Lucien’s face. The whole of the ballroom is looking our way, but I don’t stop to see any expressions. My feet, wiser and less flustered than I, take me out of the grand ballroom as fast as they can.

Varia’s room is, in some sick way, becoming the only safe place for me in the palace. My hands are shaking wildly as I walk in, shed the valkerax-bone jewelry, and throw it aside.

Anger simmers beneath my surface. What kind of person kisses someone who’s lied to them and murdered people in front of their very eyes? What about me is so worth ignoring these things?

For once, Lady Zera, I ask of you: be as merciful with yourself as you are with everyone else.

“Shut up!” I snarl at the echo. “Shut up, shut up!”

who does he think he is, telling us who we are? telling us what to think of ourselves? arrogant!

I can feel my teeth starting to grow long and sharp and hear my breath as panting, blood rushing through my ears. The urge to reach for the wine decanter hits me, but I pull myself away. That won’t help. It’s never really helped. I can feel some horrific pain welling up in my chest, building like a bubble of gas below a marsh, pressure crushing my lungs. The hunger pounces on it as an opportunity.

he is ruining his life with his sister because of you. he is ruining his future because of you.

I collapse on the couch, my head in my hands. The hunger’s words are crystal clarity—pure, logical, and undeniable. There’s a sudden knock at the doors that has me standing. One of the guards comes in, holding a piece of parchment in his hand.

“Ah, pardon me, milady, I thought Her Highness had returned as well,” he says. “She’s received a letter marked extremely urgent.”

An urgent message? Something so normal and routine breaks through my spiraling mind.

“I can bring it to her,” I say.

“Thank you, milady.” The guard bows and hands me the parchment. I take it, and he sees himself out. When I’m sure he’s gone, I flip the parchment over—it’s a letter with no wax seal. Not from another noble, then. Curiosity is a welcome distraction, and so I open the letter carefully.

The handwriting is instantly recognizable—I see it every day. Or the shadows of it, at least. Yorl’s. It’s thin and small, every letter perfect.

Varia, it reads. There’s been a breach near the dog’s kennel. Your presence is required.

The dog—he means Evlorasin, obviously. But what kind of breach? I thought Yorl had the valkerax contained? There’s another letter within that letter—the watertell must’ve sent both of them, one after the other in quick succession.

The next one reads simply: The dog has escaped. Bring help.

My eyes bug out. Escaped? Evlorasin has escaped?

My insides drop with a sickening velocity. Is it digging below the city even now? It could collapse the city in on itself. People could die. And every chance of getting my heart back resides with Evlorasin. If it escapes back to the Dark Below…my deal with Varia won’t be called off, but who knows how long it’ll be before she finds another valkerax for me to teach?

At the same time, part of me thinks, quietly, that it would be better if Evlorasin did escape. If Varia never finds the Bone Tree and never dies for it.

But I know she’ll never stop. Letting Evlorasin escape now would only slow her down.

I bolt up from the couch. Bring help, the letter said. Apparently Yorl thinks one witch won’t be enough. Which means one Heartless won’t be enough, either. Varia is entrenched with her father and mother—pulling her away from the queen and king discreetly won’t be easy, especially considering I slapped the prince. And by the time I bring her the letter and she manages to get away from them, Evlorasin could already be gone for good.

I need someone who can help, and fast.

There’s only one other person in the city who knows valkerax better than Varia does, better than Yorl even, and certainly better than I do.

I lunge out of the door and look at the guards. “Where’s Malachite?”

“The prince’s guard said he would be patrolling outside the Moonskemp party, milady.”

I dash back to the last place I want to be, hiking my skirts up to run. Sure enough, I find Malachite walking outside the ballroom with his usual lazily striding alertness.

When he sees me running toward him, he narrows his bloodred eyes. “Not you. Not tonight.”

“Me,” I assert. “Definitely tonight. I need your help. And quickly.”

His white brows knit. “Why would I help you? You just slapped Luc; I could hear it all the way out here, for spirit’s sake.”

“You’re the only one I can think of who can stop a valkerax.”

Malachite’s expression detonates, his anger blown to smithereens by shock. “A valkerax? Lying once spectacularly wasn’t enough for you?”

There’s no time to argue with him. “There’s a valkerax below this city. Are you going to help me stop it or not?”

There’s a long beat of silence. Malachite frowns. “You’re serious?”

“Not often. But right now? Yes.”

The beneather darts his eyes over to the dim candlelit party. He looks back to me and nods. “Fine. But if this is some trick, I’m arresting you.”

“Yes, yes, you’re very important.” I grab his cool, marble-white hand and pull him down the hall, out of the palace, and into a carriage. I pound on the carriage roof the whole way, demanding the driver go faster, and thankfully he obliges, the wheels screeching over the cobblestones and the cobblestones themselves bouncing Malachite and me violently around.

“A valkerax was kept beneath South Gate,” I shakily admit to Malachite, the bumpiness of the ride making my teeth bite my tongue. It heals too quickly to be of consequence. “But it’s escaped. We have to get it back.”

“Dark Below,” he swears, voice chopped by the vibrations. “Now’s probably not the best time to admit I never completed my culling practice, then?”

“It’s fine—you did it, at least, right?”

“Enough to tell the mane from the tail,” he asserts.

“You’re the direst threat in the city I can think of besides myself,” I say. “It’ll be fine. It has to be fine.” He scoffs, and I ask, “What? What is it?”

“You’ve got so much faith in me, and none in Luc.”

Lucien. Godsdamnit—he’s going to know there’s a valkerax below the city once Malachite helps me. His best friend will surely tell him. They’ll inevitably start to suspect what I’m doing for Varia involves the valkerax, and with Fione’s talent for acquiring information—and all of Gavik’s research at her fingertips—they’ll certainly find out she wants the Bone Tree, and what that means.

But no, it doesn’t matter right now. The first priority is to stop Evlorasin running before it hurts anyone, no matter who learns of its existence.

South Gate comes into view sooner than I ever thought possible, and I leap out of the carriage before it even begins to slow down alongside the curb. Malachite tumbles out after me, regaining his footing far faster. I point to the door in the high white wall, and together we dash for it. The guards are still here, but they look rattled, their gazes needling out from beneath their helmets, and even when I give the password, they don’t relax a single inch. Yorl is waiting for us inside by the door down to the arena, his claws clicking over the grating as he paces anxiously, his tail thrashing. He glances up when he hears us coming, his green eyes going from frantic and searching to flat and annoyed.

“Where is Varia?” he snaps.

“Held up.” I waste no time offering my hand to Malachite. “This is Malachite. Where did Evlorasin run off to?”

Yorl looks Malachite up and down, and, obviously realizing he’s a beneather, the displeased thrash of his tail dies down slightly. But only slightly. Malachite just gives Yorl a cheeky wink as the celeon stares at him, and I press past the two boys and head for the door.

“Are you going to make a lady capture an escaped valkerax all by herself?” I call. Yorl and Malachite follow quickly and easily, their dark-vision impeccable. Yorl offers me his hand, and I take it. I can practically feel Malachite staring at it.

“Gave up on your friends up above and made some down here in the dark, huh?” the beneather scoffs. I flinch, my hand squeezing Yorl’s harder.

Surprisingly, the celeon snarls. “You talk exceedingly much for one whose job is only to guard.”

“And you use too many big words for somebody who smells like cat piss,” Malachite fires back.

“You can be nasty to each other when the valkerax is secure. Yorl,” I insist, “what happened? How did it get out? I thought you had this place under control?”

“I did,” Yorl argues. “But a few minutes ago, there was a localized quake—it cracked all the beneather runes on the walls of the arena.”

Malachite whistles. “And cracked runes can’t hold a valkerax in, or out, anymore.”

Yorl presses on. “The valkerax sensed a fissure made by the quake behind the arena wall and burst through.”

“Sounds like your security stinks,” Malachite drawls. “I offer my consultations for free, you know.”

“I checked with the Crimson Lady.” Yorl ignores him with a snarl in his voice. “And the readings confirm it—there was suspicious magical activity the very moment before the tremor struck.”

“A witch?” I ask.

I feel Yorl nod next to me. “I assumed as much the moment I went to the surface. The quake was enough to fracture only the arena walls, and it touched none of the city. If I was to guess, whoever cast the spell was attempting to flush us out knowing roughly where we are, but knowing nothing about what’s actually down here.”

“So it wasn’t Varia?”

Yorl answers my question with silence, and then, “No.”

“Something wrong, celeon?” Malachite chirps. “You sound suspicious.”

“It’s just…” Yorl exhales. “The data on the spell we collected from the Crimson Lady—it wasn’t intentional.”

“What are you talking about?” I frown.

“Magic has a pattern,” Yorl says. “And that pattern can be detected by the Crimson Lady. I’ve seen many such patterns. But this one wasn’t tight. It wasn’t well-constructed. It’s almost as if it was…unintentionally done. Instinctually. Fueled by emotion, not by concentration.”

“So your rogue witch can fly off the handle,” Malachite scoffs. “So what? We still have to clean up their mess.”

Reminded of the immediate valkerax emergency once more, we take the steps as fast as possible, but about halfway down, we hear the clash of armor and the horrible cacophony of dozens of celeon roaring in pain and anger.

The deep, loud breathing—I notice chillingly—is gone.

Yorl starts walking faster, dragging me along by the hand with his urgency. We reach the bottom of the stairs, and I’m shocked to see actual oil lanterns lit along the walls. The lights illuminate something far more sinister—blood smearing in vivid crimson banners for far longer than blood has any right to. The smell of burned fur singes the air, blackened scorch marks enveloping what looks like the smoldering skeletons of celeon. My stomach revolts, and I grip the hilt of my father’s sword hard enough to bite skin.

Malachite’s irritated expression instantly dissolves as he turns to Yorl. “How many have we lost already?”

“Six.” Yorl’s flinch is so well disguised by his picking up of a nearby lantern that I almost don’t see it. A true professional—or a young man barely managing to hold on to his failure. He hands it to me. “The breach is obvious. I want you two to follow it and stop that thing.”

He pulls a heavy brass weapon off his back, handing it to me. It’s a spring-loaded crossbow of some sort, loaded not with bolts but with glass phials that glimmer with a clear substance, their tips ending in sharp needles.

“Get these shots in as close to the throat as you can. Not the chest or the spine—the bone is too thick there. The throat. Inside, if you can somehow manage it, is the most effective. Five should be enough to knock it out cold.”

I nod and turn to see Malachite already jogging toward the massive arena door, raised and waiting. I start to follow after him when I feel claws nip at my hand. Yorl holds me back, the pupils of his green eyes slit by the bright lamplight. There’s something soft in his features, a new and strange thing coming from the cold polymath.

“Please,” he pleads. “Don’t let anyone else die.”

I see myself in him, standing there, pale and reflected in his orb-like eyes. I see the girl who can’t bear to think of fourteen men, or any more dead because of her. The guilt has him. But it’s not his fault—how could wanting to make his beloved grandfather’s name known be his fault? How could he be expected to keep perfect control over one of the most ruthless, powerful beasts in the world?

I squeeze his paw and smile reassuringly at him. “I’ll be only a sec, honey. Get my tea ready.”

I sprint to catch up to Malachite, seeing the arena with clear vision for the first time: deep scratch marks littering the floor, old bloodstains and decaying animal carcasses scattered around and piled high. Dull, chipped teeth long shed and great clumps of stringy ivory fur. The localized quake Yorl talked about is clear on the walls—little fissures pulling the iron apart, insinuating themselves between the carved words of familiar beneather runes and rendering them inert. There are impact craters in the walls of the arena from the valkerax’s thrashing, so deep I can see where the very earth of the ceiling strained to stay together.

How could I be expected to keep perfect control over a relentless, bloodthirsty hunger that preyed on my every weakness? That knew me better than I knew myself?

you are only human, after all, the hunger taunts, an odd edge of pity to its voice.

“Only human, after all,” I whisper.

The breach yawns open before me—bent metal rimming a crevice sundering deeply and darkly into the earth. I hold my lantern high and press into it. It’s absurd, to only realize certain things much later than they need to be realized. I thought I had half a brain. I thought I knew things, the important things. But there are bits and pieces of thought that fall from life, and we scoop them up and desperately try to make a whole picture of them, sometimes long before we’re ready to see what that picture is.

Pushing into the dark tunnel, I slide the last piece into its slot. Yorl is not the valkerax. And now, for the very first time in my Heartless life, I start to think, solidly and wholly and clearly:

I am not the hunger.