He’s there one moment and gone the next, and I follow the sound of his boots over the stone, into the kitchen. Where is he going? I pull a discarded apron off the dirty laundry pile, donning it to hide the bloodstains and dashing after him to catch up. He’s so far ahead of me I can only hear his footsteps, not see him, but they lead right to the Serpent’s Wing, and to the only apartments I’m allowed near—Varia’s. He’s dismissed the usual royal guards outside the room, the door left slightly ajar.

“—so why would you do it?” Lucien’s voice singes the air—not quite a shout but nowhere near low.

“I wanted to make sure Fione felt safe.” Varia sighs.

“And what about Zera?” he barks. “What about her safety?”

I hear Varia pause, and then she bursts out laughing incredulously. “Her safety? She’s a Heartless, Luc. She’s safe no matter what.”

“She’s not safe from pain,” he retorts. “She feels it just as much as we do! Why would you inflict that on her?”

“I told you.” Varia sighs deeper. “Because I care about Fione.”

“And you care nothing for Zera. Because she hurt me. That’s it, isn’t it? She lied to me, and so you’re exacting some kind of sick revenge on her for it.”

“She’s breaking your heart!” Varia’s voice suddenly pitches up, half hysterical. “And I’m watching her do it every day! I’m watching you let it happen!”

Lucien is quiet, and that quiet rings throughout the room. The longer it reverberates, the more I feel sick to my stomach.

“She’s a Heartless, Luc,” Varia repeats finally, softer. “She will always value her heart above yours.”

truth, the hunger laughs. truth from the Laughing Daughter, always—

“You’re wrong,” Lucien growls. My unheart sinks into the depths of the Twisted Ocean.

no, dear prince, she’s so very right—

“Am I?” Varia asks coolly.

“She saved me,” he says. “She could have let Gavik kill me in the clearing and taken my heart then and gotten her own for it. But she defended me. She killed those men to protect me.”

No. No, no, no. The wrongness crawls over me, pinching my skin as it goes. That memory is for me and me alone. That memory is for me to keep, forever, by myself, so that no one else can use it as some false proof that I’m worth saving. Just like he’s doing now.

one good deed does not forgive a lifetime of mistakes.

The royal siblings are silent, and then, “When she’s human—” Lucien starts, voice ragged.

“When she’s finally human, she will leave,” Varia interrupts him smoothly. “Because that’s what any self-respecting person who’s been magically enthralled for years would do. You are trying to hold on to grains of sand, brother.”