I know him.

I’m so glad I know him.

Quiet at last. A moment, behind the ugly divider, where I can be alone after everything. Well, not all alone.

never alone.

The hunger is so faint, I have to strain to hear it. That’s a first. And possibly a last. Lucien’s trying hard to suppress it with his magic. Devoting way too much to it, probably, more than Nightsinger and Varia ever did. It doesn’t feel sustainable.

Me as his Heartless. Him as my witch. Is that sustainable? Is it even right?

What do we do after losing everything? We lost. Varia has the Bone Tree. We lost. I wasn’t supposed to lose, but I did. I was supposed to get my heart, and now…

Now I have my friends again.

And maybe, some small part of me whispers, that’s a fair trade.

“Well.” I step out in the mustard dress and try the coyest of smiles. “I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky to still be alive to complain at all.”

“Yeah.” Malachite’s mouth twitches as he offers his arm and a dripping noble accent. “My clashing lady? Shall we venture out into the city and hunt our lovable quarry down?”

“Verily,” I agree, taking his arm with a terribly overacted haughtiness.

…

My room is a tower room, I learn, about as quickly as it takes me to descend the seemingly endless spiral staircase. But it’s not the only room by far—this entire tower is an inn of some sort, with numbered doors all along the descent and a main room at the bottom serving drinks at a small wooden bar. The farther we go down, the colder it gets. Malachite opens the door and icicles ooze off the doorway, cracking and sliding soundlessly into the banks of snow below like blades into scabbards.

“It’s even colder outside!” I whine. “How do people live like this?”

“Warmly,” he drawls, motioning around at the rope bridges nearby, a throng of people walking back and forth about their daily business in heavy, eye-searingly colored wool. The beneather leads me over one bridge, then another, and I’m surprised at how sturdy the structures are compared to how fragile they looked from far up. No slots open in the lacquered slats, and not a single sway in the bridge, not even when it’s full to bursting with momentum and wind.

Every step I take over a bridge slat is another step of worry. Of fear.