Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,120

Malachite laughing together about something. I watch him transform into a crow, black hair growing long and swirling around him and turning white, his clothes bleaching white and his body shrinking small and feathery. He does a quick circle around Malachite’s head before turning back to human, boots thumping on the wood of the deck. Malachite looks pissed, but Lucien just laughs, smile bright under the brighter moons.

Trying so hard to steal moments of laughter, even though we all know the end is coming.

I watch his hand, the one I know isn’t really there. He’ll have to tell, eventually. And Malachite won’t be pleased, to put it far too lightly. Neither will Varia, when they get her back.

I laugh under my breath. Varia. Oh, the princess is gonna be piping-hot fish-pie mad when she comes back and finds out it was me who did the whole world-changing thing, not her. She’ll hate me more than she does now, if that’s even possible. I can just imagine her walking through New Vetris and constantly spitting on whatever silly statues of me Lucien decides to erect.

“He better make me look good,” I mutter to no one and pat my chest. “But then again, with this figure, how could he not?”

“How lucky it is you developed a habit of talking to yourself outside your time at the Vetrisian court,” Fione’s voice comes from behind me. I whirl to smile at her.

“Indeed, Your Grace. Can you imagine the scandal I would’ve started if someone caught me muttering about eating cow’s brains for lunch?”

“Utter mayhem,” she agrees, the stars twinkling in her blue eyes.

“I would’ve died,” I say. “Again.”

“For good, maybe.”

“Oh, no one dies for good.” I wave her off. “Haven’t you read any books? Characters live on forever.”

“You’re not a character, Zera.” Her voice goes flat. Does she suspect? No. She couldn’t have. I haven’t let anything show.

“Obviously.” I motion at my everything. “I’m larger than life. And, occasionally, my own corsets.”

Her face doesn’t move, and that’s how I know she’s thinking about it. Of course she is. Out of all my friends (what a luxury, that sentence), she’s always been the whip-smart one. Yorl is just as intelligent, certainly, but Fione knows. She has uncanny intuitions and she follows them, because she’s a creature of heart. Some part of me still connected to Varia knows that’s what the princess loves best about her.

“You can’t leave,” Fione says finally. I lean on the railing of the ship, watching the sea churn black, embroidered white by our froth.

I grin at her, small and faint. “Why would I?”

“I meant what I said, Zera. I don’t want to lose anyone anymore.”

“Neither do I,” I agree.

She leans beside me, staring into the water with me. “You can’t keep doing things on your own.”

“Oh, I’m not—not this time. I have all of you.”

My smile doesn’t reach her, her gaze searching the ocean desperately. “I promised, you know. I made Varia promise we’d name our first child after you.”

I laugh, watery. “Bet she fucking hated that.”

“More than a little,” Fione agrees. “But when this is all over she’ll probably come around, considering you’re going to save her.”

There’s a pause in her voice, like she’s waiting for me to correct her, to let her down, to shatter the little bead of hope I gave her with my promises to save Varia no matter what. But I’m done doing that. So I just chuckle instead.

“I am, aren’t I?”

I watch her compose herself, noble training ramrodding her back straight like I’ve seen Y’shennria do so many times. To recover. To look strong.

“There will be a celebration when it’s over, of course,” she says in her best archduchess voice. “And you will be there.”

I stare out at the moonlit horizon and imagine it. A half-rebuilt Vetris, full of sawdust and rubble and almost-finished buildings. The brown-patched lawn of the palace, unkempt but spread with a blanket of delicious snacks and cakes and drinks. Fione making flower crowns with Varia, giggling and laughing. Yorl and Malachite bickering about something with a wine-flush on their cheeks. And Lucien, offering me his hand to dance a slow dance in the new buds.

It’s a beautiful idea, and I hold on to it like a dream. I hold on to it as Fione leaves and Lucien joins me at the railing, his kiss like honeyed fire. I hold on to it as he pulls me into the captain’s quarters, the feather bed consuming us and him consuming me. I