Announcements can take a flying leap off a volcanic crevice for all I care. But it’d be cowardly, wouldn’t it—to run away from the people I’ve hurt? To hide in Varia’s apartments like some sort of pathetic worm cowering in its burrow? I used them. I traded their trust for a chance at my heart, and now that my gamble has failed, the least I can do is face them with the truth laid naked between us. They deserve that much.

“I hope I don’t have to remind you,” Varia says, “that speaking to anyone of what I am, or what you are doing for me, is the fastest way to lose your one chance at your heart.”

I frown. “But you need me. I’m the only one who can teach it how to Weep.”

She curls a tendril of shiny dark hair around her delicate finger. “You are merely a means to speed up a lengthy process that will happen, one way or another. Make no mistake—you are valuable. But you are also unnecessary. You are a luxury I would like to keep but would have no compunction sacrificing if you prove troublesome.”

My stomach churns uneasily. I should’ve known better than to get complacent around the princess. I hide my nerves in a scoff. “I suppose being called a ‘luxury’ is a step up from being called a monster.”

She’s quiet, and then, “That reminds me. You will not allow yourself to be cut with a white mercury blade.”

The command curdles my hunger, makes it rise up dark and swelling inside me, but it has nowhere to go. It simply lingers under my skin, and I hate every inch of it. She knows the only way for me to Weep and get free of her thrall is her white mercury blade. And now, even if I get ahold of it, I won’t be able to cut myself, to weaken our magical bond with it and Weep enough to escape.

Varia smiles. “Can’t have you running off, now can we?”

…

The moment the carriage pulls to a stop, I dart out of the uncomfortable atmosphere and take the palace steps two at a time. Mercifully, there are very few nobles out and about in the palace halls—the little Y’shennria now in permanent residence in my head tells me they’re too scared for their own well-being after the rumored murder of Gavik. There is one noble, though, looking down on me from a banister as I step into the verdant, flower-strewn entrance hall of the palace. He looms so far above me, pointed dark eyes lingering on places they shouldn’t. On monsters they shouldn’t.