Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,46

make Old Vetris to survive, make the entire Bone Tree to survive. So why are the High Witches now so confident in their ability to drive the valkerax off?

“Lucien.” Fione draws even with him. “There has to be—”

Lucien’s eyes flicker to Nightsinger’s back, her swaying mane of hair, and he cuts the archduchess off. “In a moment.”

It’s a Vetrisian noble court message—subtle, all in the eyes. He obviously doesn’t trust Nightsinger. Fione has the same idea as me, maybe, but we can’t talk about it with my old witch around. And that stings more than I thought it would.

The sun sets much later up here—or rather, with how high up we are, the sun takes a lot longer to dip below the horizon. We spiral up the spiral ramps of the residential buildings, catching whiffs of herbs and roasting potatoes and fish. Dinner. Dinner smells, like any dinner smells in Vetris. Through little windows above us, witch families tuck their children into bed, pulling wood-slat blinds shut for the night, sweeping away the day’s leaves from their doorsteps. Some of them wave at Nightsinger, and she smiles and nods back. The stares are still a thing—always aimed at Lucien, like he glows or displays something different only other witches can see. Or maybe an outsider witch is that much of a rare curiosity.

Nightsinger finally stops in front of an empty apartment on the incline, pointing to the medallion in Lucien’s hand.

“The sigil will allow you entry past the door. There are extra linens, and the woodbin refills automatically when it gets low. Just be careful to extinguish your witchfire before you leave.”

“All right.” Lucien nods. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, Black Rose.” She smiles at him, then me. “And to you, Zera. I’m sorry we couldn’t help you more.”

We. Her and the High Witches, together. Lucien wordlessly waves the sigil over the door and walks in, Fione and Malachite following after him. Nightsinger’s rueful smile widens at me.

“I suppose you don’t want to hug me now, knowing what I am.”

“Is it—” I swallow. “Does the skinreading always happen when you touch someone?”

“No. I’ve lived with it long enough—and there are teachers, here. I learned to control it. It’s considered proper manners, after all, even among witches, to refrain from invading private memories.”

“Yeah,” I laugh a little. “Right.”

“Your prince, however, does not know how. It runs quite wild in him.”

“Can you teach him how to…you know.”

She shakes her mane of tawny hair. “Unfortunately, it’s something that requires years of practice. I could give him some basics, but I fear he doesn’t like me very much.”

“No, it’s not—”

“Rather, he doesn’t like the High Witches.” She interrupts me smoothly, without a hint of judgment. Her eyes crinkle. “Few do. They are leaders, not friends.”

“Why were they…” I swallow. “All that glass. Like it was growing. I saw it growing.” Nightsinger’s smile fades, and I press on. “What is that stuff? Magic? Why is it poking out of the ground all around the city—”

“I’m sorry, Zera,” she says, whirling away. “I have to go. But Crav and Peligli are having dinner at Y’shennria’s tonight. Her apartments are one level above you, facing south. Tell her I said hello, would you?”

“Nightsinger.”

She looks back over her shoulder ever so slightly.

“I’m sorry, Zera. But you are no longer mine. This divides us in spirit, but you will always be in my heart.”

She’s in a human shape one moment, and the next her sleeves elongate, her tawny mane wraps around and into her, covering her in white feathers as she shrinks, grows wings, and flies off into the night. I watch her until she’s a faint speck of snow spiraling down into the trees of Fox quarter.

There are so many stars up here, so completely free from cloud cover that they radiate their own light. Packed tight and close, like diamonds on a queen’s bodice, they glimmer among the silky darkness of the sky.

The queen. Queen Kolissa, Varia and Lucien’s mother. She’s dead, isn’t she? Ash, like most of Vetris.

She killed her mother.

She said she would carve the world anew, not raze it. But how much of her is her, anymore, and how much is the Bone Tree? Who destroyed Vetris? Varia or the Bone Tree demanding destruction inside her?

I breathe in and try to focus on anything else. The Red Twins peek over the horizon, rising equally as slow as the sunset, their crimson craniums bare, shy, and waning new. The starlight catches on the ground, radiating into and