Varia’s whole demeanor changes in an instant. She straightens, all her haggardness and coldness disappearing. She puts my heart back in its bag, and I watch it go with a longing burn. She wipes her sweat on her sleeves, smooths her hair, and turns to Yorl.

“I’ll bring her to you tomorrow morning, then. Anything you need, I’ll provide you with. But as of now, we have a banquet to prepare for.” She brushes past him and looks at me over her shoulder. “Come.”

Without waiting for my response, she sweeps away, the firelight dimming upward as her boots ascend the spiral stairs to the surface. The command doesn’t force me to follow, but I do anyway, shuffling after the light.

“Make sure not to get eaten before then,” I call to Yorl.

“Make sure not to eat anyone before then,” he deadpans back. I scoff as Yorl and the gate disappear into total darkness, the valkerax’s breathing still echoing in my ears.

The irony doesn’t escape me. It rarely does—I chase irony down like an overzealous kitten hunting butterflies. Varia’s dangling in front of me a way to get my heart back, just like Nightsinger did. Is it the nature of witches to wield freedom like a bargaining chip?

Nightsinger struck the deal with me in the first place because I’d been asking to be released for so long. And because she wanted me to have some burning incentive to take Lucien’s heart, no doubt. She could’ve easily commanded me to obey Y’shennria, go with her, infiltrate the court, and take it. But she didn’t. She cares—cared—too much about me to do that.

In the carriage back to the palace, I ask, “Why choose me specifically for this? Are you that desperate?”

Varia moves her velvety dark eyes from the window and onto me. “I tried to find other Heartless. Helkyrisian Heartless. Avellish Heartless. Cavanos is the only place Weeping has ever made itself known—the constant wars and the Heartless exposed to battle evolved it naturally. As far as I’m aware, you’re the only one still alive who knows how to Weep. The others either died with their witches in the Sunless War or were shattered for their knowledge.”

So that’s why she looked at me so hungrily in the clearing. Her words gut me like a fish. I’m the only Heartless left who knows? Reginall—Y’shennria’s butler—definitely knows a bit about Weeping, but he’s a human now. Even if he understood it fully, it’d be difficult to teach without having first done it. So I’m…I’m really the only one.

alone. always alone.

“And then you found me in the clearing,” I mutter. “How were you going to locate the Bone Tree if you didn’t find a Weeping Heartless?”