A swift shadow, and I feel his lips on my forehead. “And they brought you to me.”

Giddiness wells up in me, the hunger trying to claw it back down, to drag it to the afterlife instead of embrace it. It’s still hard, to accept his love at the drop of a hat, without doublethinking or flinching away. Maybe it’ll always be hard. But at the very least, I’m trying. I’m trying to make it work, this time, instead of running away.

This time, I lean up and kiss him back.

The whistles that go around the mess reverberate, cheers and leering, and the prince and I part at the same time, sheepishly smiling at each other. This is the only thing to get Fione’s cute little snub nose out of her book, and she shuts it and walks over. Lucien puts on a modicum of a business face for her.

“Anything to report?” he asks.

“No,” she admits wearily. “I still need the codices. But it doesn’t hurt to memorize the letters in the meantime.”

The dark circles under her eyes are faint but there. I know she hasn’t been getting much sleep.

“She’s—” I pause, tabulating the weight of my words. “She’s thinking about you, you know. I’ve seen it.”

Fione’s face falls, and then sets grim. She can’t even manage to smile. How would she? Saving Varia might mean destroying all magic on Arathess. She knows, like I know, that Varia wouldn’t want that. No one wants that, except maybe Archduke Gavik and Vetris. But Vetris is effectively gone. Gavik is dead. New God, Old God—it doesn’t matter anymore. All that’s left are the valkerax, and Varia, and stopping both of them.

I promised Fione. My promise shines back at me in her hopeful blue eyes, hopeful despite everything—I promised I’d find a way to get Varia back alive, no matter what. But what if it’s a promise I can’t keep? What if all promises are things people can’t truly keep? We make promises to make people feel better, to give them hope, and when the time comes to fulfill, it’s often impossible. Promises themselves are just empty words.

What is gratitude—Evlorasin’s voice rings in my head—but a promise made whole?

“I promised, Fione,” I try into the stiff air. “And I don’t intend to break it.”

She shutters the light behind her eyes, the hope there dimming to shadow.

Lucien steps in then. “The Black Archives will have answers, Fi.”

The archduchess nods. “Yes. But I’m not sure they’ll be the answers we want.”

We watch her go up the stairs to abovedeck, the book clutched under her arm.

Lucien inches his fingers into mine slowly. “Do you think we make her sad?” he asks. “Being together like this?”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Probably.”