Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,92

in my body curdles away from it.

“Yes, well,” Yorl sighs. “Because you’re technically a ‘dead’ specimen, they voted against the far kinder live-gathering methods.”

“But you voted for them, right?” My voice goes high as the polymath pulls out a hooked needle and wipes it clean with alcohol. Yorl snatches it from the human’s hand almost too quickly, and they look utterly shocked. Yorl’s green feline eyes widen, too, like he’s alarmed at what he just did, but his voice remains smooth.

“Please, scholar. This is technically messy, menial corpse work. Let an adjutant like myself ensure your hands remain clean.”

He’s good at covering, but the scholar doesn’t buy it, snorting as his thick eyebrows wrinkle under his hood.

“‘Menial corpse work’? You must be joking. If our suspicions are accurate, she’s the first nonhuman Heartless specimen in Arathess history. Surely even an adjutant like yourself can see how important she truly is.”

“Not important enough to spare her pain, though,” I mutter, perhaps a bit too loudly. The scholar’s dark eyes snap to me, a flicker of familiar Fione-like curiosity in them.

“Can you hear the song, Heartless?” he demands suddenly.

“I’m from the Vetrisian court, where a quartet accompanies every breath,” I chime. “I’ve heard a lot of songs—none of them particularly noteworthy.”

“No,” he presses, leaning in. “The song. The one all valkerax hear.”

he means us.

I pause, the hunger echoing. “You mean the Bone Tree’s hunger?” He nods, and I tilt my head. “I’d love to tell you. But on the condition I get a painkiller or three.”

“There are no conditions,” the scholar snaps. “We will take your information, and your friends will receive theirs. So it has been deemed.”

I glance at Yorl, but from the way his green eyes slide around, I get the feeling he can’t interfere or assert himself. Not without risking his own position. Organizations are fickle like that. But thankfully, I’m a free agent.

I make a sweet smile. “Oh, sure. You can take all my information. Slice me up, take bits of me all you want, look at me under a lens. But my parts won’t tell you what my mouth can.”

“We don’t need your words,” the scholar insists, “to know you.”

“Yes, I’m certain you’re very good at sussing things out,” I agree placidly. “I saw your matronics, all your little machines. But that must be so much work. So much effort, so many long nights in your laboratories. So much brainwork, trying to analyze my brainwork. All my experiences, all my perceptions. I could just tell you and save you the bother.”

I’ve got him, and I know I’ve got him because he pauses on the brink of leaning in farther, like he’s pulling himself back from temptation.

The old me would have let them hurt me. The old me would have gladly thrown herself into the fire to achieve a means to an end.

But the new me has different ideas. The new me has people who care about her.

Twist the knife, Zera, salt the wound, make him want to wash it out. Save yourself.

being kind to yourself? The hunger laughs. a pathetic escape attempt.

“The first nonhuman Heartless in the world,” I murmur, looking down at myself. “Wow. That’s so amazing. Who knew?”

I look over to Yorl innocently, wide-eyed with my faux wondering. He can’t assert himself, but he can play along. He nods solemnly, an emotion he’s incredibly good at showing. Perfect, really. And it tips the scholar over the edge, the hooked needle in his hand retreating into his sleeve.

“Fine,” he assents calmly. “We administer pain relievers, then.”

“Will that work on her Heartless body?” Yorl asks, and I’m simultaneously flashing eyes at him to shut up and curious about it myself.

“We’ll use the formula intended for large game.” The scholar motions to the other silver robes on the wall, and they scatter out and back in, wheeling a tray with multicolored bottles on it. “It’s not as if overdosing will kill her.”

“Good point.” I flash a wink at Yorl as the scholar tips a bottle into my mouth. The taste is scathing tar and ferment, but it works almost instantly—all the muscles in my body unwind like coiled snakes, and I sink into the black rock throne far more relaxed. Yorl is an ochre blur above me, the muscles in my eyes drooping.

“I’ve gotta say, Ironspeaker, this stuff is way better than what you used to give me.”

“Shut up,” Yorl says, not an ounce of anger in it, only gentleness.

“Not quite yet.” The scholar steps in, holding either