Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,83

to Lucien. “He’s cheery.”

“Undoubtedly,” the prince agrees lightly. “He’s never been good at sharing. Or letting go.”

“Or manners,” I add.

“Or emotional subtlety. Remind me to send him home to Pala Amna for a vacation after all this.”

“And by ‘vacation’ you mean ‘a quick roll in the hay.’” I translate.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps he finds his own romantic interest and leaves ours alone for a while.”

“I’d miss him, though,” I pout. “Who would we hire to spy on us while we kiss, then? It’s just not the same thrill without a constant onlooker.”

His eyes glimmer as he looks over at me. “Your sarcasm is sometimes unsettlingly genuine.”

“Thank you.” I beam.

We pass the mess hall, and among the few sailors finishing up their shift meal at the long tables sits Fione, cane resting on the bench and her head bent over the green-backed book. She reads fiercely, flipping pages back and forth with a knot between her brows.

“Don’t you think she’s working too hard?” I whisper to Lucien, and he sighs.

“As if she knows the meaning of the word. Especially when it comes to Varia.”

“She put on such a sweet front when we first met,” I reminisce. “But she was looking for Varia the entire time. Plotting. Full of surprises, that one.”

“Look who’s talking.” Lucien curls a smirk in my direction.

I fake-huff. “My surprises were calculated. Self-serving.”

A swift shadow, and I feel his lips on my forehead. “And they brought you to me.”

Giddiness wells up in me, the hunger trying to claw it back down, to drag it to the afterlife instead of embrace it. It’s still hard, to accept his love at the drop of a hat, without doublethinking or flinching away. Maybe it’ll always be hard. But at the very least, I’m trying. I’m trying to make it work, this time, instead of running away.

This time, I lean up and kiss him back.

The whistles that go around the mess reverberate, cheers and leering, and the prince and I part at the same time, sheepishly smiling at each other. This is the only thing to get Fione’s cute little snub nose out of her book, and she shuts it and walks over. Lucien puts on a modicum of a business face for her.

“Anything to report?” he asks.

“No,” she admits wearily. “I still need the codices. But it doesn’t hurt to memorize the letters in the meantime.”

The dark circles under her eyes are faint but there. I know she hasn’t been getting much sleep.

“She’s—” I pause, tabulating the weight of my words. “She’s thinking about you, you know. I’ve seen it.”

Fione’s face falls, and then sets grim. She can’t even manage to smile. How would she? Saving Varia might mean destroying all magic on Arathess. She knows, like I know, that Varia wouldn’t want that. No one wants that, except maybe Archduke Gavik and Vetris. But Vetris is effectively gone. Gavik is dead. New God, Old God—it doesn’t matter anymore. All that’s left are the valkerax, and Varia, and stopping both of them.

I promised Fione. My promise shines back at me in her hopeful blue eyes, hopeful despite everything—I promised I’d find a way to get Varia back alive, no matter what. But what if it’s a promise I can’t keep? What if all promises are things people can’t truly keep? We make promises to make people feel better, to give them hope, and when the time comes to fulfill, it’s often impossible. Promises themselves are just empty words.

What is gratitude—Evlorasin’s voice rings in my head—but a promise made whole?

“I promised, Fione,” I try into the stiff air. “And I don’t intend to break it.”

She shutters the light behind her eyes, the hope there dimming to shadow.

Lucien steps in then. “The Black Archives will have answers, Fi.”

The archduchess nods. “Yes. But I’m not sure they’ll be the answers we want.”

We watch her go up the stairs to abovedeck, the book clutched under her arm.

Lucien inches his fingers into mine slowly. “Do you think we make her sad?” he asks. “Being together like this?”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Probably.”

“Then that just means we’ll have to get Varia back.” He smiles wanly. “As fast as we can.”

The last two days on the ship feel like they go by in a pleasant, perfect blur. Perfect blue sky, perfect sea, perfect moments soaking up the sun in Lucien’s arms. Malachite braiding my hair, grumbling the whole while. Fione, smiling small when I finally, finally make the right joke.

Only when the crow’s nest calls “land ho” does cold reality start