A witch can order their Heartless to do anything they want. Nightsinger never used it on me or with her other Heartless—the adorable children Crav and Peligli. Godsdamnit—Crav and Peligli. How will I ever see them again? I chew on my lip and desperately try to focus; Varia isn’t Nightsinger. I saw how she commanded Gavik. I hurt her brother. In theory, she could command me to jump off a cliff into the maws of a dozen ravenous sharks and I’d have no choice but to do it.

Slowly, my limbs moving like rusted gears, I shed my tattered black dress and pull on the tunic and breeches. The golden heart locket still sits between my collarbones, heavy and somehow comforting. I’m not sure if it works—allowing me to physically go more than a mile and a half from my witch—but just having it around my neck gives me a strange strength, warming my cold, fearful bones ever so slightly. My witch is new, my unlife is uncertain, but the necklace remains.

A guard suddenly walks in when I’m dressed and offers me Father’s rusted sword. Just seeing its flaking metal handle has me breathing easier. It’s the last thing I own of my parents’, and here, at the end of my world and the beginning of a new one, I couldn’t ask for anything sturdier to lean on. I take it, pinning it to my belt. I feel doubly protected now, even if I know it’s a hollow illusion. Varia points to a pair of black boots near the door, and I lace them up my calves, watching her out of the corner of my eye. When I’m done, she immediately moves for the door and motions for me to follow her.

The palace should look different—as different as my life feels—but it doesn’t. Moonlight still streams through the windows and onto both the sleek red carpeting and the marble statues of half-naked women with spears. The guards at every door bow to the princess, and she nods back with perfect regality, as if she wasn’t absent for five years. They shoot me wary looks—Lady Zera Y’shennria, with the princess?—but they don’t question it. Varia walks ahead of me, and my feet woodenly try to keep up even as my mind spins circles around itself.

“I’ve told Father you’re a Heartless, of course,” the princess says softly. “And he’s ordered that information to be kept under lock and key, lest panic break out. I’ve also told him your witch is eager to keep you alive, and I’ve assured him you can’t share any of Vetris’s secrets with them. But I’m certain at some point he’ll have to question you about Gavik’s death. You won’t tell him anything, of course.”