We trudge through the char and back to the more untouched streets, where people and carriages roam. The Red Twins are high in the sky, both of them crescent slits of rust. It’s almost curfew, which went into effect the same day the war was declared, and so people are hurrying to get home. A group of lawguards shouts at us to hurry home, too, but Malachite holds up one bloodied hand. There can’t be too many beneathers in Vetris who aren’t the prince’s bodyguards, and sure enough, they leave us alone after that.

“How do I get him to move on?” I ask after we cross the bridge to the noble quarter. “He won’t give up.”

“That’s the problem with Luc. He’s as stubborn as a hunk of granite. He never gave up on Varia, either—reading her old papers all the time, chasing after that Tree she kept mentioning. Not until you came along. You helped.”

“Did I?” I whisper. “It feels like all I did was hurt.”

“Listen.” Malachite sighs. “I’m not the best at love. I had it once, when I was a half-sentient grub in the Dark Below, with some kid who ran around the mosspig pens with me. We rolled in the clay a lot. It wasn’t very romantic.” I catch his eye, and he clears his throat. “Just…do you like him?”

“Yes,” the hunger and I answer instantly as one, and it fades, leaving me to defend myself. “I like him. But someone returning that affection, when I’m like this”—I motion down to my dirty clothes, to my empty chest, to the murderer, to all of me—“It’s not fair to him. Or to me.”

Malachite laughs again, the most I’ve heard from him since the reveal of my betrayal. “Love isn’t fair at all, ever.”

“You’ve hurt people to protect him,” I press. “Killed people to protect him.”

Malachite nods.

“Then you know what it’s like,” I say. “What if someone who’d never killed wanted to love you? Someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats? Someone who doesn’t know what it means to make a mistake they can never take back?” I breathe in, looking up at the stars. “Lucien deserves someone who doesn’t know these things. Someone like him. Innocent.”

The beneather is quiet, his eyes shining under the gentle caress of the moonlight.

“What if you were made for war,” I continue, hot tears annoying the corners of my eyes, “and that war is now?”

I can see the blurry arm Malachite is extending to me, but just barely. “Zera—”