Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts)

by Sara Wolf

  Strangely, the labyrinth we traversed to get to the High Witch’s door is gone. When we walk out of the monolith room, there’s only one hall, and it stretches long into darkness, the exit a glaring white light. We walk in silence, all of us mulling over what just happened. Some of us more politely than others.

  “Sarvetts,” Malachite snarls finally. “All of ’em.”

  “Conniving cave scorpion,” I chime. “Right?”

  He looks at me with the barest rub of irritation. “Is that all that sticks in your head? My beneather swears?”

  “And, occasionally, hopes and dreams.”

  Nightsinger’s waiting for us when we walk into the sunlight, her smile rose-tinted and sweet as ever.

  “I can tell from your faces it didn’t go very well,” she says. Her eyes fall on my chin, to the bloodstain I know has to be there.

  “Not well at all,” I agree. Her smile curls apologetically at the corners.

  “Come. Let’s get you to the guest quarters, where you can clean up and rest.”

  The four of us follow her out of Bear quarter and back into Deer. My eyes catch on every eclipseguard, feeling half sorry for how much the High Witches rely on them. Unless…unless they have some other way I don’t know about to defend from the valkerax. A spell, maybe? But the witches of old didn’t even have spells like that. They had to join with the humans and 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 out of the chunks of glass jutting from Windonhigh’s grass, and the bad feeling in my stomach balloons like a child blowing a sheep’s kidney full of air. I can’t even pinpoint it—I can’t tell whether it’s fear or anger. All I know is this feeling is bad. Terrible. Something bad is here, around me. Or maybe in me. I don’t know anymore. But it only gets louder when I stare at those chunks of raw glass growing up from the dirt.

  Something wrong.

  Something terrible.

  And I recognize it, in that instant. The wind whips my hair and I remember where I’ve felt this before—my dream. That dream of two tree pendants, of that awful feeling of what would happen if I didn’t bring them together. That dream of the Hall of Time and the stained glass shattering, that lonely tree wearing the shards like armor and then teeth, all pointed at me. So incredibly lonely.

  But how can a tree be lonely? How can the same feeling appear in a dream and out of a dream? Varia showed me the glass shard inside my heart bag, and she told me it’s what kept me alive.

  Is it what keeps those High Witches alive, too?

  Is it…the Glass Tree?

  “Zera.”

  Lucien’s voice. I turn to see him leaning against the doorway, a decided weariness in his eyes.

  “Hey.” I smile. But he doesn’t.

  “We should go,” he says. “To Y’shennria’s dinner she invited us to.”

  “Right.” I calm the swell in my heart at seeing her again, at seeing Crav and Peligli. “Got anything nice to wear?”

  “They left us some things.” He motions inside the guest apartment. “Come choose, before Malachite steals all the pretty ones.”

  I pause. But we’re thinking the same thing, because he says, “If they won’t help us, Zera, we’ll do it ourselves. No matter what.” He grins. “Didn’t you promise Fione? You’ll get Varia back alive. No matter what.”

  I l
augh, too small to even be a real one, and nod, following him inside.

  The chaos of getting dressed is a welcome change from the somber mood. Fione has to help us all—clearly the inner workings of overlay back-clasps and double-thread-Avellish knots elude all but the archduchess.

  “I thought you were supposed to be good at this stuff, Luc,” Malachite grumbles, trying to force his paper-pale, slender leg through some fabric.

  “That’s a tunic, Malachite, not pants.” Fione sighs, snatching it from him and righting it.

  “Oh.” Malachite pulls it over his head with a muffled “Cheers.”

  “Fione.” Lucien motions hopelessly to a complex braiding pattern in vine-green silk down his chest. Fione looks up at me as she fixes my own braid pattern on my shirt.

  “Just do what I did for him, would you? I have to help Mal before he rips everything in two.”

  “Horseshit.” Malachite’s voice resounds over the sound of tearing seams, and I chuckle and make my way to Lucien. The guest apartment is entirely fueled in light and heat by his witchfire—the purple-black of the fire blazing in braziers glancing over his chest. I try not to look at him or acknowledge the fact he’s totally bare beneath his complicated shirt.

  “You’ve done this before, then.” His voice rumbles as my fingers clumsily fix the first braid.

  “Not especially.” I bite my lip and force a braid under itself. “I think these were designed to be fastened with magic, actually.”

  “Sadistic,” Lucien says, smirking smallish down at me.

  “Or ingenious.” I ignore the heat rushing like water through me. “Fairly easy to pick out the spies if they can’t button their trousers like the rest of us.”

  “I managed that much, at least.”

  I swallow what feels like a quiver of arrows. “S-Sure. Good.”

  Warm hands suddenly envelop mine on his shirt, and he presses them to his bare chest. That blazing honey and pepper scent wafts from his neck as he leans down, nudging my chin up and up until finally, finally our lips meet. Streaks of fire tremble from me into him and back again, down to my belly, and Malachite’s squawking and Fione’s chiding fade into nothing, my blood rushing in my ears so much louder, harder, stronger—

  Lucien pulls away at the last second of my sanity slipping, eyes clouded.

  “I didn’t mean to, so suddenly—”

  “It’s okay,” I blurt. “It’s…more than okay.”

  “You were just…are just.” He swallows. “Beautiful. And seeing you so immersed, trying so hard.” He pauses. “You stick out your tongue, you know.”

  “D-Do I?”

  He nods, grinning lopsidedly. “When you’re thinking hard about something.”

  “Strange,” I lilt. “Because when you’re thinking hard about something, you make no expression at all.”

  “Should I?”

  “Maybe. How else will I know to spring a kiss on you out of nowhere?”

  His laugh is soft and deep. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Fione sighs at us. “The world includes more people than just you two, you know.”

  “Regrettably,” Lucien says, never once looking away from my face as I finish the braid up his shirt with renewed vigor.

  “First I guard him with my life for most of my life,” Malachite huffs. “And now he’s saying he wishes I was never born!”

  I lay a hand on the prince’s chest to indicate I’m done, and he immediately turns to Malachite and reaches for him, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him into a headlock.

  “I heard that, Mal.”

  “Yeah!” The beneather squirms, clearly able to get out of the grip but allowing it. “Good! You ungrateful little bug!”

  Lucien tries to yank him around, but Malachite ducks out of it, turning the tables on the prince and reaching for his collar when Fione taps her cane on the sandstone floor loudly.

  “Enough! We can’t keep Lady Y’shennria waiting.”

  “She hates tardiness,” I agree lightly. “And clams. But mostly tardiness.”

  The beneather rolls his eyes and shoves Lucien away, and Lucien’s laugh is nice to hear. It’s nice, to see them playing around. To see Lucien being carefree, even when it’s hardest for him to be. Even if his heart is heavy. It’s nice, to walk beside him up the ramp, the stars gleaming down on us and Fione and Malachite walking with us, arguing over something small and probably etiquette related.

  “You can’t put your feet on the table.” Fione sighs.

  “Why not? We’re not in Vetris anymore! No more stuffy rules—”

  “There are still rules,” Fione quips. “You’re the prince of Cavanos’s bodyguard. So start acting like it.”

  “Spirits. You’re no fun anymore.” Malachite sighs. “I liked you way better when Varia was—”

  He stops himself. Fione’s back goes straight, and Lucien and I exchange a glance.

  “Sorry,” the beneather says quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Here we are.” Fione strides ahead of us, stopping before the south-facing door and tapping on it with her cane.

  “Fione,” I start.

  “No.” The archduchess interrupts me, her every word laced with steel. “We’re not here to dwell on the past, Zera. All of you. We’re here to change the future.”

  “It’s all right to talk about these things, though—” Lucien starts, but she slices him off at the knees with her gaze. The starlight glimmers off her mousy hair, the periwinkle in her eyes turning to ice as she reminds us of the sober reality.

  “As long as Varia d’Malvane has the Bone Tree, I don’t want to talk. I want to do.”

  10

  THE REPRIEVE

  Y’shennria greets us at her door dressed in delicate black knit lace and a ruby-dotted net in her hair. If she notices the awkward atmosphere among the four of us, she doesn’t remark on it, showing us elegantly into the larger apartments. It’s lit up by witchfire—though by which witch, I’m not sure. More importantly, it’s decorated with all her old furniture, or most of it anyway, and my heart perks up seeing the familiar loveseat, the embroidered chaise lounge, the black leather couch on which I spent so much time bleeding and training to become a lady. The amazing bookshelves are here, replete with her whole library and the iron and glass orbs of varying spikiness I used on my shoulders to agonizingly train my posture. Even the grandfather sandclock is here, ticking out the halves in slow seconds.

  Even Reginall is here, dressed in a smart suit and his manicured mustache and offering us tangerine cordials on a tray.

  “Regi—” His name gets stuck in my throat, but he’s much calmer. He puts the tray down on the table and holds out his wrinkled hands to me. I dash to him, reaching, and he clasps me close, kind eyes twinkling.

  “Milady Zera. How long it has felt, and how joyous it feels now. Are you well?”

  “Well.” I nod, my smile so big it feels like it’ll split my face. “Better. I’m doing—” I look back at Lucien, at Fione and Malachite. “So much better.”

  “I am very glad to hear it. I was muchly worried when we had to leave you behind in Vetris.” He looks down at my chest, as if searching. “Lady Y’shennria told me you are still Heartless.”

  “Yeah. But I chose it this time.” I smile. “Turns out, it’s far easier to stop a valkerax incursion when you’re immortal.”

  “And the hunger? It does not call to you?”

  “It does still. But Lucien’s doing everything he can to keep it quiet. And I’ve learned to—not accept it, per se. But work with it. A little.”

  Reginall looks at the prince and then back down at me, the crow’s feet in his eyes crinkling. “I see.”

  “There’s so much I have to tell you,” I blurt. “I Wept! I did it, just like you taught me.”

  “Ah.” He waves. “I ha
rdly taught you anything. I merely told you snippets of rumor.”

  “But it worked!” I insist. “I did it. I can do it now. Well, not now, because I’ve changed witches again. I’d have to be cut by a white mercury blade, but Fione has one and—” I smile wider at the confused look on his face. “It’s a good thing, I promise. I even taught a valkerax how to do it, too.”

  “A valkerax.” Reginall breathes, eyes going wide. “Well. It seems we have much to talk of indeed. But first, a refresher for the lady.”

  He offers me a tangerine cordial with an overdone politeness, and I take it with equally overdone politeness, and the two of us chuckle uncontrollably at the stringency of it all.

  I whip my head around. “Is Fisher here?”

  Fisher, the man who drove me around in Y’shennria’s carriage in the before times. Before I was exposed as a Heartless. He’d been my only companion, my only source of kindness some days.

  Reginall shakes his head. “He went home, south. Back to the Empire.”

  I grin ruefully. “As long as he’s safe, then.”

  Y’shennria’s cook Maeve is in the kitchen, stoking the witchfire as she hobbles about and stirs varying pots of bubbling goodness. She squints up at me and pats my hand when she recognizes me, a missing-tooth mumble of here again, the strange thing as she turns back to the pots. Perriot—dressed in silk stockings and looking much cleaner than I saw him in Vetris—suddenly bursts into the kitchen trailing two other children.

  Turquoise eyes. Deep skin. Crav. Blond hair, chubby fists. Peligli. A moment of silence where they stare and stare, their jaws open. They’re all right. Alive. All my limbs feel like soft butter. I imagined them dead so many times.

  I sink to my knees and hold my arms out.

  “Zera!” Peligli’s the first to shriek, launching herself into my arms with such force I’m almost bowled over.

  “Peli.” My laugh bubbles up as I clutch her close. “Oh gods, Peli. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Me fine!” She can’t stop shrieking, but her puffy-cheeked face becomes very serious all of a sudden. “You fine?”