Yorl is suspiciously quiet, but I’ve no time to ponder it when we suddenly reach the bottom of the stairs. I hear shuffling and the clank of armor and faint, rough voices, and then Yorl’s clear call: “Open the gates.”

“Are you sure, sir? We could postpone; it hasn’t eaten fully yet.” Another voice echoes.

“Now,” Yorl demands. The clank of armor resounds again.

“Is it all celeon down here?” I ask.

“Do you know of any other races who can see in the dark and lift five times their own weight?” Yorl drawls.

“Uh,” I start. “The beneathers?”

He scoffs. “They aren’t as strong as celeon. If the valkerax escapes, we are the first line of defense.”

“R-Right.” I gnaw my lips. “On that note—it’s chained up, right? Like, at least one chain? Maybe Varia splurged and bought a thousand or so?”

I can’t see, but I swear I can hear Yorl rolling his eyes. The screech of metal as the gate lifts makes me jump, and Yorl pushes me forward into abyssal emptiness, the gate slamming shut behind me. The sonorous rhythm is blaring in my ears now. The valkerax is in here, breathing and alive, and I can’t see it at all.

A cold glass tube touches my palm, making me jump.

“Don’t drop it,” Yorl says, his voice still assertive but now shaking on the edges. It’s a small relief to hear even him worried.

“You came in here with me?” I snap. “Are you mad? You could die! You know, death? Big scary dark unknown lacking the joys of creature comforts?”

“Drink quickly,” he presses. “It’s already sensed our footfall and is coming this way.”

I’ve never drank anything faster in my life—my throat swallowing with all the frenzied urgency of a dying fish. I can’t see—there’s just darkness. If I die, it’ll be out of the blue. Or out of the black, in this case.

“Say something, damn it,” Yorl hisses. “It’s in front of you.”

Say something.

Say something to a valkerax who needs to learn to Weep, to a valkerax in unthinkable pain. It might be a giant wyrm and I might be a human, but if we’re both under magic’s sway, we’re the same thing wearing different shells.

if you are both Heartless, the hunger pinpricks my brain, you are both hungry.

I breathe deep.

“Hi there,” I chirp into the dark. “First order of business: please don’t eat me. Second order—”